The trials around the four-day working day, successfully applied in other latitudes, will arrive in the Basque Country in the coming months. This was announced in the Basque Parliament by the second vice-hendakari and Minister of Labor and Employment of the Basque Government, Idoia Mendia, who has indicated that the approach would protect the salary of employees.
Counselor Mendia explained to La Vanguardia that this test of the four-day working day is part of a battery of measures that seek to "retain talent and promote work-life balance."
“We have a Basque employment strategy that looks to 2030 and some trends that set the roadmap in the Spain 2050 plan, and from there we have a permanent dialogue with the agents in which we see trends to take into account. We see brutal, global competition for talent, and a brain drain that sometimes exists. Companies tell you that to be competitive in today's world, but especially in tomorrow's, what is most valuable is people. There, in order to attract people, we see that people, and especially young people, are not only looking for a better salary, but also for greater flexibility and looking for a work-life balance. What is called the emotional salary is gaining importance ”, he explains.
In addition to this essay on the working day concentrated in one less day, his department wants to assess the pros and cons of the extension of teleworking as a conciliation measure and, thirdly, analyze codetermination in the workplace, that is to say , the participation of workers in strategic decisions, an area in which they have looked above all to Germany.
In practice, Mendia will propose to the Social Dialogue Table, which brings together businessmen and some unions (although with relevant absences such as ELA, the first Basque union, and LAB), the creation of an innovation group that would be in charge of managing this pilot test of the four-day working day, as well as the subsequent evaluation of its implementation in some companies.
The objective of the Basque Government is that this project can be implemented this very legislature, that is, before the spring of next year.
The initiative, in any case, gives special importance to the evaluation of the test of the four-day working day in companies. "It is possible that this analysis arrived, that we want it to be very exhaustive, the next legislature arrives," Mendia indicates.
The Department of Labor and Employment will also analyze, through the aforementioned innovation group, the participation of workers in strategic decisions, through "a proposal to test codetermination in the workplace, at a time of profound technological transformation , giving more paper to the workers”.
Likewise, it has indicated that it is convenient to "test well" if teleworking, highly demanded by some professionals, may have other risks to their rights, "and articulate mechanisms by which companies and workers benefit."
These two initiatives will also be tested by the innovation group, in order to rigorously detect the future possibilities of these measures.
Idoia Mendia claims the need to "walk towards a new business and trade union culture, which must be entered without prejudice and with all the will to guarantee the viability of companies and the improvement of working conditions".
