The V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) closed by employers and unions in May urged the Government to “modify the price review regulations in contracting processes derived from Law 9/2017, of November 8, of Public Sector Contracts”, however, the early dissolution of Las Cortes left this demand without an official response. Social agents agree in pointing out the reform of this regulation as one of the priority issues of this legislature, after verifying that the increase in labor costs has harmed both companies that have public sector contracts and their workers.
This claim is not new, it was reflected in previous framework agreements, but union sources reproach that contacts with those responsible for Economic Affairs and Finance have been limited to the informal level, so the regulatory modification has taken a backseat in a legislature. . marked by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Currently, the public contracts standard and Law 2/2015, of March 30, on the de-indexation of the Spanish economy prevent, in general terms, public administrations from being able to compensate for the increase in costs during the years in which the contracts are in force. . cough. There are some exceptions for works, but increases in salaries or contributions are left out.
UGT maintains that as designed, the public sector contract law does not respect collective bargaining, since it prevents the transfer of agreements reached once the contract or public concession has been initiated. A diagnosis that they share in CCOO, where they defend that this phenomenon is deteriorating the quality of the services provided. The workers’ representatives agree with the employers in the diagnosis of the problem, although they advance that when the reform is implemented, differences will arise if they want to expand business benefits at the expense of having them paid by a third party, which in this case is public funds.
Union sources tell this medium that in some sectors, unions are organizing to take joint steps once the new Government is named to increase their pressure capacity. The economic areas most affected by this situation are also the most feminized, given that they are private companies that cover the services that public administrations (State, communities or city councils) have progressively outsourced. These range from home care, care of dependent people in residential centers, cleaning services, forest firefighters, private healthcare, veterinarians or medical transportation, among others.
Empty public contracts
These conditions make thousands of calls unprofitable for companies in the sector, leaving up to 2,600 tenders empty in 2022, according to data collected by DoubleTrade. Social agents appreciate that this phenomenon progressively separates specialized companies from new ones that enter the calls with lower offers, something that the conditions of their workers usually resent. For this reason, the CEOE also included this matter in its list of ‘100 business priorities’, launched in June before the general elections, to establish it among the demands for the new government.
Furthermore, the workers’ representatives reproach that this situation introduces greater conflict into collective bargaining, due to the difficulty of transferring the increases determined by the Minimum Interprofessional Wage or those agreed upon by the company and the workers to the salaries or due to the limited margin with The one that businessmen tell in the contracts signed years ago. Union sources point out that on several occasions they have tried to apply agreements different from those that applied to the service, agree on different salary tables for new workers and those who were already dedicated to that activity with another company or introduce salary improvements only in the base salary, which in some cases represents a very small percentage of the total due to the large number of supplements.
Unwanted partial contracts
Another solution to this situation has been partial hiring, so that workers accumulate a greater workload in a reduced number of hours, a situation that is often unwanted, as unions denounce. This is a constant in the most feminized activities such as cleaning or care that UGT-Public Services wants to break, since in most cases this partiality is not desired. For this reason, they have recommended to their negotiators that they reduce this type of contract to very justified assumptions and mandate that a maximum of 8% be established on the total number of contracts. While they refuse to sign agreements that include the figure of discontinuous part-time contracts, as defended this Wednesday by the Secretary of Union Policy, Isabel Araque Lucena.
