The defeat suffered at the hands of Podemos has forced the vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, to improvise to rescue her unemployment benefit reform, after Congress overturned the decree law that launched it. In this way, she will immediately call on social agents “to work ahead of time on a reform that is very positive for our country,” according to Díaz this Thursday.
The vice president took the opportunity to accuse Podemos, along with PP and Vox, of having “hit” the workers, but, political darts aside, it is significant that this time the rule will be negotiated with the social agents, something that did not happen with the decree law that was validated by Congress. The reason given was the urgency to approve it because it is part of the elements that will be judged to grant the new payment of 10,000 million from the recovery plan.
But, this haste has become a common element that has provoked the anger of unions and employers, who repeatedly complain that the Government has devalued social dialogue. That is why this call is well received.
“We are going to return to the starting point and it seems more important to me to see what the Government brings to the table. There was a fronton when we were negotiating the entire reform and I would like to see what the new elements are, if they are just touch-ups or if they are fundamental,” said the general secretary of UGT, Pepe Álvarez. For its part, CC.OO. considers that although the rejection of the reform is bad news, at the same time it now opens the possibility of addressing it in social dialogue and avoiding its negative elements. From the employers' association they were more synthetic: “Welcome,” said the vice president of the CEOE, Lorenzo Amor.
To overthrow the decree law, Podemos held exclusively to a precise point. The point is that, with current legislation, a recipient of unemployment benefits contributes for retirement at 125% of the minimum base and with the reform, this contribution was gradually reduced to 105%. For Podemos it is a cut; Not for the Ministry of Labor, because with the increase in the amount of the subsidy implied by the reform it is compensated.
In any case, it is the element that Podemos argued to overthrow the reform and one that the unions also ask to correct. Pepe Álvarez proposes maintaining the excess contribution at 125% for recipients over 52 years of age, so that working does not represent a cost to their pension rights. AND CC.OO. It also demands to correct this point and avoid harming the beneficiaries.
The rejection of the reform means freezing the increase in the amounts of the subsidy, which increased in the first six months to 570 euros, in the following semester it remained at 540 and in the following year, at the current 480 euros. If even with an approval this Wednesday, the reform would only have been applied from June, to give time to apply the changes it entails, now the delay will be even greater.
