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  • Q&A. What closes and what is the recoverable paid leave?

The government announced on Saturday a tightening of confinement measures against the coronavirus, which, in practice, will result in the closure of part of the economic activities that were still operating. The closure will inactivate all those employees who are unable to telecommute, but companies must continue paying their wages and once the market reactivates, make workers recover the hours as agreed with them.

The Executive calls it "recoverable paid leave" and in the royal decree that regulates it - and it is published this March 29 - it ensures that in its approval it has the "acquiescence of the social agents" , that is, of the unions and the patronal. The UGT and CCOO unions certainly gave their support yesterday through a joint statement explaining that this measure follows the recommendations of experts to stop the spread of the virus.

However, businessmen have shown their disagreement and discontent since the measure was made public yesterday and criticism has been increasing in recent hours.

CEOE and Cepyme were the first to show their surprise and "bewilderment" at the decision and they showed it through a joint statement published last night, hours after Pedro Sánchez's announcement. "Spanish companies do not discuss the latest sanitary measures adopted and we will comply with them, as up to now, but it will be a measure that will have an unprecedented huge impact on the Spanish economy, especially in sectors such as the industrial sector. lead to a deeper crisis in the economy that could become social, "they say.

Both organizations are also demanding complementary measures to alleviate part of the effects of this paralysis that will be total as of this Monday. "It is essential that this measure be accompanied by others that prevent an aggravation of the already dramatic situation that companies are going through, among other Spanish SMEs and self-employed workers, and that do not cause a massive destruction of business and employment fabric in a definitive way":

His reaction has been followed by that of other business organizations from different parts of the country. The Circle of Basque Entrepreneurs , for example, considers that the measure is "extremely serious" for the Basque economy and will produce "enormous damages to business activity, in addition to aggravating the economic crisis and further hindering the possible recovery", they consider in a note collected by the agency Efe. The organization also believes that there is "a certain disagreement" with the flexibility that the Executive had proposed for the processing of ERTEs.

The response of the Federation of Companies of La Rioja (FER) has been very forceful, considering the decision taken at the last Council of Ministers "as hasty, very serious, unilateral, unjustified and of dubious constitutionality, which violates the freedom of business and that it seems to be adopted behind the back of the reality that Spanish companies and freelancers live because of the current pandemic. "

"There is no point in proposing that once the situation is normalized, the temporality will be reactivated when unfortunately in many cases there will no longer be activity, and therefore there will be no employment to safeguard . It is not true that in all cases the situation is going to be temporary. It is not a mere parenthesis in the economy, and therefore the obligation for companies to maintain employment for six months will in many cases be impossible to fulfill, "they assert.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • CCOO
  • CEOE
  • Pedro Sánchez
  • UGT
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19

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