CEOE and Cepyme thank the PP, Junts, and Vox for blocking the reduction in working hours and call for renewed negotiations.

The CEOE and Cepyme employers' associations expressed their gratitude this Wednesday to the PP, Junts, and Vox for rejecting the reduction in working hours in Congress and their willingness to reactivate negotiations within the framework of social dialogue to try to reach an agreement.

For the employers' association, the vote's outcome is "fully consistent with the lack of results in social dialogue" and "avoids a serious negative impact on the economy, employment, and also on consumers."

"The debate on working hours should return to its proper place: social dialogue and sectoral collective bargaining. This is the framework within which companies and workers must address any essential element of working conditions, far from the media hype," added CEOE and Cepyme.

At the same time, they recalled that, from the outset, they warned that "an imposed reduction in working hours, without taking into account the reality of companies, SMEs, and the self-employed, would generate organizational problems, lower productivity, higher costs, lower quality of services, and less attractiveness for investment, all in a context of difficult vacancy filling."

"We defend that reduced working hours, like any improvement in workers' conditions, should be achieved through collective bargaining, balancing the needs of companies and workers. This has always been the path to progress and social peace in Spain for more than 40 years," they emphasized.

The opposite, according to the employers' associations, is allowing a ministry to legislate on a matter already agreed upon in collective bargaining, thereby "weakening" the essential mechanisms of social dialogue and, with them, coexistence. Therefore, they have encouraged "returning to the negotiating tables as soon as possible and reactivating collective bargaining, which has been slowed down by the Ministry of Labor's persistent interference."