Last Wednesday, the Ministry of Labor opened negotiations for the extension of death permits to ten days and for the creation of palliative care and accompanying euthanasia. In this dialogue, according to what the unions said, they discussed a proposal that the employers had already put forward when the Ministry of Labor had put a draft of the project on the table: that these new permits not only be financed by the company, but that Social Security also intervenes. In particular, according to the same sources at the dialogue table, Labor would be open to this possibility in palliative care leave. It should be noted that this possibility exceeds the competences of the Ministry of Labor and enters the sphere of the socialist part of the Executive. CEOE, as UGT and CC OO have said and as already supported by the employers’ association, has refused the extension of leave due to death to ten days.
CC OO negotiator Javier Pacheco explained the employers’ approach: “They felt, we can understand that there may be a line of consensus in this sense, that palliative care should be supported by a public benefit, probably by social security, to be similar to other elements of health coverage.” Beyond this possibility of agreement, both Pacheco and the UGT negotiator, Patricia Ruiz, said they had found a very contrary position on the part of employers towards the Labor proposal. “For now we are very far from the agreement. We hope that they will emerge from this deadlock situation,” Ugetista said. Neither the Ministry, nor CEOE, nor Cepyme showed up after the meeting.
The negotiators discussed this Wednesday at the table the project that Labor had already proposed on October 20th. Thus, even if the topic of that meeting was the reform of the TFR (negotiation that CEOE and Cepyme abandoned), Yolanda Díaz’s department presented a bill to expand the death permit and create two new ones, palliative care and support for euthanasia (one day).
Palliative care, according to the Labor draft, allows up to 15 working days for the care of the spouse, de facto partner or relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity who require palliative care. “The exercise of the right to these days may be divided, at the worker’s option, into two fractions, for a period of three months, starting from the first day on which the worker takes such leave and until the date of death of the person requiring such care,” Labor states in its proposal.
This permit can be used only once for the person in palliative care, “without prejudice to the worker’s right to also benefit, and during this period, from the permit for hospitalization or surgery without hospitalization”.
Labor therefore opens up to the possibility that this permit is not entirely financed by companies, but that a part is paid by Social Security. It has not yet been specified how the funding would be distributed. The ministry, according to the same sources, does not deal with this possibility of leave in the event of death or accompanying euthanasia. Díaz’s department has pledged to host a new meeting on November 25 and to prepare a new proposal that includes negotiators’ views. The unions have asked that this be the last meeting, that if there is no consensus the government “decides” and that there is no process that lasts longer.breast die”.
As regards leave due to death, the Labor text proposes to modify article 37 of the Statute, which regulates breaks, holidays and leaves. It proposes a new section that establishes “ten working days of mourning in the event of the death of a spouse, de facto partner or relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity”. This second degree of consanguinity implies that those ten days apply to the death of parents, children, siblings, grandparents and grandchildren. These ten days can be spread over four weeks starting from the day of the family member’s death. The UGT negotiator said those ten days seemed “too long” to employers.
Díaz’s approach maintains the times already foreseen by the legislation for deaths up to the second degree of affinity. That is, in the event of the death of in-laws, brothers-in-law or sons-in-law, the two days of leave can be extended if the worker has to travel.
Ruiz stressed that the convenience of these permits is linked to the fact that “many times these deaths end up resulting in temporary disability leave for family members, who are not able to deal with these processes in two or four days.” “We ask that the exercise of the right to mourn be standardized to that of the countries around us,” said the representative of the CC OO, before the UGT highlighted some examples: “In Portugal they have a leave of absence from five to twenty days depending on the relationship, in Sweden ten days, in Croatia seven… Spain cannot be left behind.”
Parliamentary procedure
In an interview this morning on Antena 3, Díaz predicted that the permit reform will receive the approval of Parliament. “I have already told you that we will bring (to Congress) the (expansion) of bereavement leave in the event of death and palliative care and we will see how even the PP will have enormous difficulty in voting against it,” Díaz said. In statements reported by Europa Press, the second vice president considered that the rules proposed by her ministry are limited to elements “very important for the lives of Spanish people and businesses” and this “does not allow for many games”. Junts broke up with the government official last week after consultation with the grassroots.
The announcement of the extension of the permits was not welcomed by the president of the CEO, Antonio Garamendi, who attacked the government’s “populist measures” to “get four votes”. He asked, ironically, “permission to rest for a while from the announcements of the Ministry of Labor.” “It’s exhausting. Every day is a new event. Now let’s see what it means,” he added. A few days later he clarified that his criticisms did not refer to the measure itself, but to Díaz’s “forms”. The unions, in agreement on the merits of the measure, criticized Labor for not having brought the proposal to social dialogue before giving it shape.
