Vocational training centers (FP) and companies urge the Generalitat to solve the management of Social Security registrations and contributions for trainees, mandatory from January 1. The institutes want to have it resolved before Wednesday because the holidays start on Thursday, from which they don't return until January 8.
They see the administrative management of all the students before this date as unacceptable and fear that they will not be able to deal with the cases that may arise. At the moment, they have requested the Social Security number of the young people.
The measure, which incorporates the days credited to working life, affects students in unpaid internships who have started this period in 2023 and end it in 2024, as well as those who already start it in 2024, as advanced yesterday by La Vanguard Specifically, it is applied in the training module in work centers of basic, intermediate and higher education cycles, specialization courses, specific itineraries and training and insertion programs. In Catalonia there are around 150,000 students of these profiles.
The companies, for their part, want the Administration to assume the management and the cost of the students because before that they will terminate the agreements with the educational centers that run the risk of committing an illegality. "We have received emails informing us that the agreement will be terminated if we do not register the student", explains Ester Giró, coordinator of La Guineueta high school, with 1,700 students. "We believe that there are also small businessmen who ignore the measure", he adds.
"The regulations indicate that the legal responsibility rests with the companies", points out Sílvia Miró, director of employment and training policies of the small and medium-sized company (Pimec), but since students are dependent on the education system, the Administration can in charge of management and I think this is what will happen", he confides. If this is the case, and it is considered "administrative staff", the regulations would allow more time to regularize the discharges, 30 more days, explains Miró. Some companies or businesses, now committed to the training of future workers, could stop offering these opportunities if they are complicated by bureaucracy.
"There are sectors in which the micro-enterprise has a high representativeness, with difficulty to further increase the complexity in its already complicated survival, and this measure (initially) has 'scared' them", says Alberto Vila, director of the ITB institute. In his sector, technology, there is a demand and the bureaucracy is assumed. "In the middle level, the productive sector is not looking for such young people. Internships are mainly done in public bodies".
"At the Bonanova high school, it is solved", explains its director, Montse Blanes. Every month, the details of the students doing internships will be sent to the Hospital del Mar and they will do the procedures. "The hospital is very committed to us and considers the students as one of its own."
The Department of Education has informed the institutes that it will send a clear instruction on Monday. "We are working on several negotiations at the same time," ministry sources told this newspaper yesterday. "We cannot get ahead of events", they added.
On Monday, the autonomous administrations will meet with the Ministry of Education and Training, to which they will ask for a new moratorium on the application of the rule. Some communities, such as Madrid and Castilla y León, have decided to assume its management and cost (100% bonus in the first year). The Balearic Islands, Valencia and Murcia value this possibility, while Cantabria could outsource it to the employer Cepyme.
Educational centers, companies and unions consider that the measure is positive for students, despite the anxiety that its application is causing.
"It is regrettable that, knowing that it came into force on October 1, the date was postponed to January 1, and no one took it seriously," says Jesús Martín, head of FP at UGT . Aims at the ministry and companies. Wasn't the FP legislature for this Government? And don't companies want well-trained workers?, he asks.
From CC.OO., Xavier Pérez believes that the Administration must assume management in a simple way and "not force the educational centers to run the last few days, with improvisation", he says.
