The proposal by Idoia Mendia, Minister of Labor and Employment of the Basque Government, to start up in the Basque Country an essay on the four-day working day has already run into its first obstacles. That same Friday, hours after the announcement, the Confebask confederation of Basque businessmen clearly rejected the proposal. In the last hours, moreover, from the Basque Executive itself, although from the jeltzale wing, they have wanted to qualify Mendia's approach, linking it to productivity and emphasizing that "it will not be imposed" on companies.
Mendia's approach has therefore become a new element of disagreement between the two partners in the Basque Government and in the main Basque institutions. The discrepancies are, for the moment, of low intensity, although it is the third time in a month and a half that disagreements have surfaced within the government coalition. On the two previous occasions they arose around the Vitoria-Gasteiz refugee center and, last week, around the possibility that 8-M will become a holiday next year.
The Minister of Economy and Finance, Pedro Azpiazu, was the first to qualify the proposal of the Socialist Minister. In an interview on Radio Euskadi, he has warned that the Basque Country could face a problem of competitiveness, so he has linked the possibilities of Mendia's proposal to the fact that productivity can allow it.
“We would all like to work less and even earn more, but is it possible? It will be if the advancement of productivity allows it ”, she has indicated. Asked if it is an electoral proposal, Azpiazu has indicated that he does not know it, "although it may seem so."
The lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, has also ruled on the trial of the four-day working day proposed by Mendia. The lehendakari has pointed out that the debate must be approached with "great care" and based on an "agreement between businessmen and businesswomen and workers and workers". "It's not about imposing anything," he said.
Urkullu added that other international trials around the four-day workday should be analyzed to see if it is possible to "maintain wages and productivity with fewer days of work."
These messages come after Confebask's resounding pronouncement against Mendia's proposal. The business association made it clear that "it will vote against the creation of a specific group to study the feasibility of the 4-day work week."
"The current economic situation of crisis and uncertainty only allows us to deal with solutions and practical commitments to, together, get out of the current difficult situation," they added.
The messages from the peneuvista wing in the Basque Executive seem aimed at calming the spirits of a part of the business community, although Mendia had already qualified that one of the objectives of the essay is precisely to test whether the four-day shift allows productivity to be maintained.
In the previous controversies between the two partners in the main Basque institutions, the most important positions in the Basque Executive, starting with the lehendakari, have ended up mediating to prevent the discrepancies from escalating. It remains to be seen if the same thing happens this time or if the cracks end up generating major tensions around a proposal to which the socialist wing attaches great importance. The electoral horizon will not help to channel the discrepancies.
