Once upon a time there was a labor reform agreed in December 2021 between the Government and all the social agents, which was miraculously approved in February 2022 by the Congress of Deputies, and now the PP, which was its great opponent, accepts as “substantially good”. In the last few hours, the Popular Party has gone even further and described its vote against then as a mistake.
These are statements by the PP campaign spokesman, Borja Sémper, who declared yesterday that “I think it was a mistake, today and then. What Alberto Núnez Feijóo is not going to do is go against common sense, is to go against the social agents, what the business community says”. When asked if this change in position does not detract from their moral authority when criticizing Pedro Sánchez, he said that at that time Feijóo was not the president of the party. "They will have to ask the previous management about that," he added, referring to Pablo Casado, in an interview on Antena 3.
In this way, the PP culminates a radical turn in its position on the labor reform that its president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, already pointed out on Thursday in Brussels, stating that, if he reaches the Government, he can propose some "adjustment", but that " I will respect that agreed labor reform (between employers and unions).
Marked as one of the milestones committed to Brussels to access the funds of the recovery plan, the labor reform has caused paradoxes, such as that Parliament was on the verge of knocking down a consensual agreement with unions and employers; singular episodes such as the error of the popular deputy Alberto Casero who, much to his regret, saved the validation of the decree law; unchecks of habitual partners of the Government, with ERC and PNV voting against; and scenes of turncoats of two UPN deputies.
A cocktail that was about to take away the reform and, as a derivative, the Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, a great promoter of the norm and who had the resignation prepared.
With the latest position of the PP, it seems clear that the reform will remain whoever is the next tenant of the Moncloa and that, if there are changes, they will be minor.
The government's reaction came from its president, Pedro Sánchez, who was sarcastic. "It is curious that they have gone from repealing sanchismo to recognizing that the sanchista labor reform is good for Spain... There he left the sarcasm," said Sánchez from Brussels, adding that "if what works is repealed, we run the risk of stopping a economy that is creating a lot of jobs”.
For their part, the UGT and CC.OO. They demanded from the PP that, to give credibility to their words, they should withdraw the appeal that they have filed against the reform in the Constitutional Court. "I sincerely believe that this rectification is good news, but lies, deceit, cannot go free," said the general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, who added that "good hours are green sleeves," and that if it were for the PP “today we would not know what it is to be able to live and work with stability in our country”.
The unions had already demanded that the PP pronounce on its intentions regarding the labor reform, and now they are also asking it to pronounce on other issues, such as the pension reform and the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage.
