The Ministry of Labor is fine-tuning how the working hours will be recorded to ensure that companies comply with the established schedules. It is based on the assumption that the current legislation does not work and is too lax and imprecise. To modify it, he previously indicated that there would be more sanctions, and today he has provided some details in this area, but in particular he has advanced something new. That the Labor Inspection have remote access to the workday records.
It is about establishing a digitized record, to make it “more accessible, reliable and transparent”, so paper is dispensed with, which is considered easily manipulated and difficult to keep, and a step is taken to new technologies. The precise details of how paper will be dispensed with have not been specified, but the intentions have been, that in current times, there must be interoperability, and with it remote access to the Labor Inspection.
The objective is that “it is not worth it to anyone to break the working day,” said the Secretary of State for Employment, José Luis Pérez Rey after the meeting in which he informed the social agents of the proposal. In short, we want to move from paper to digital support to correct the current situation in which "work sanctions are not dissuasive, they do not achieve their objective, which is not to sanction, to collect, but to comply with their obligations."
A digital support to facilitate control and also prevent manipulations. "It is essential to prevent the seats from being altered or manipulated by the businessman or another person," indicated Pérez Rey.
Another of the elements that Labor has provided today has been that the toughening of the sanctions will mean, in addition to a greater amount, that they will be applied not by company, but by worker whose right has been violated.
At the social dialogue table this Monday, Labor has also presented to employers and unions its proposal to reduce the working day to 38.5 hours this year and to 37.5 hours in 2025. To achieve this, article 34 of the Workers' Statute, and once carried out, use a transitional mechanism to apply it sequentially and with time and flexibility so that companies and workers have time to adapt. The bases on which Labor proposes its negotiation are the unions and the employers.
