22% of workers fear retaliation if they join a union, even though it is a gesture that can remain anonymous, according to the Collective Bargaining Survey carried out by the CC.OO May Day Foundation. posted this morning.
Data that the general secretary of the union, Unai Sordo, calls “a scandal.” “It is unacceptable that in a democratic state, 22% feel that they can be retaliated for this reason. 5% would already be a scandal, but 22% draws attention. It has to do with a reality that I am not saying is the majority, but that is not marginal, a way of understanding the management of the company as authoritarian, which considers that the organization of workers is an element to be pursued,” Sordo stated in the presentation of the survey.
Another of the highlighted elements of the survey is the relationship between the type of contract and precariousness. In this area, workers with a discontinuous permanent contract declare that they feel as precarious as those with a temporary contract. It is something that draws attention because discontinuous fixed contracts have had a great push since the entry into force of the labor reform to address the high seasonality of the Spanish economy. They represent a formula designed to give more stability to workers, although the perception that appears in this survey does not confirm it.
For CC.OO. This perception does not question the good results of the labor reform. “The problem of non-worked periods has to do with excess dependence on seasonal activity in Spain. The discontinuous fixed contract gives more stability to the worker, and the labor reform is a field of success,” says Unai Sordo, although he recognizes that the person who must be without work for a few months logically perceives a problem.
On the other hand, the same survey shows that in relation to the concept of well-being, workers with an indefinite permanent contract give a perception similar to those with a permanent contract. Therefore, there are different perceptions that these workers give with this type of contract, better taking into account well-being, not so much with respect to precariousness.
The survey also indicates that half of Spanish workers consider that their working conditions are imposed by their company and that they do not have the capacity to negotiate them, which for the union demonstrates the need to promote Collective Bargaining. Another significant fact is that a third regularly accepts working conditions even knowing that they are not legal.
For Unai Sordo, the survey represents an amendment to the entirety, and with data, to the labor policies that have been made since the 1980s and that came to prescribe that for companies to function, there had to be a gradual degradation of working conditions. job. “It is about counteracting this idea, even for economic efficiency,” says Sordo, adding that workers show that their performance depends largely on reducing job insecurity. “It is time to definitively break the old inertia of the Spanish labor model, of a vertical and authoritarian company, with low salaries and external flexibility,” concludes the unionist.
