Unless something changes—and there’s no sign that it will—the coalition government will face another parliamentary defeat today, at the start of the political season, which will clearly highlight its enormous parliamentary weakness.
The bill to reduce the 38-hour workweek by half an hour, drafted by Yolanda Díaz, the leader of the communist wing of the government and head of the Ministry of Labor, will be rejected with the 177 votes of the PP, Vox, and Junts, the right-wing Catalan party that backed Pedro Sánchez in his investiture in exchange for an amnesty.
“Bringing a law negotiated with the unions but not with the employers’ association is doing things incorrectly,” explained Junts spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, to justify her party’s rejection of the text.
Government sources have explained that they are very aware that rejection is the most probable outcome, but they claim it will expose the opposition by “the right-wing parties” to the social progress the government is proposing.
For their part, the parties opposing the reduction in working hours insist that with a country that has shown stagnant productivity for years, skyrocketing absenteeism—more than 1.5 million workers are absent from work daily—and social contributions that have not stopped increasing, this law is, in effect, a salary increase of more than 6% that would further hurt millions of small and medium-sized businesses, which represent 99% of Spain’s productive fabric.
