• Unemployment benefits report. SEPE records the payment of 2.3 million ERTE in April
  • Business Summit: Entrepreneurs ask the Government for consensus, certainty and reforms

The Government's intention to reach a quick agreement to extend the Temporary Employment Regulation Files (ERTE) has clashed with employers and unions. The parties have not been able to reach an agreement at a new meeting to extend the temporary employment regulation (ERTE) files until September 30.

Therefore, the Government will not extend the current system tomorrow in the Council of Ministers. The three parties will continue negotiations next Wednesday to agree before the validity of their last agreement expires in eight days.

The offer transferred by Labor and Social Security to approve a new protection scheme against the consequences of the more restrictive coronavirus does not have the approval of CEOE, Cepyme, UGT and CCOO. There are eight days left to expire the current scheme that protects the incomes of more than two million workers and exempts hundreds of thousands of companies from payments.

The Government, represented by Yolanda Díaz, Minister of Labor, and José Luis Escrivá, Minister of Social Security, always has the possibility of legislating next week without the express support of businessmen and unions. The fact that you have not already done so indicates the value or the need you find in seeing your decision supported. Businessmen and unions yesterday expressed their commitment to negotiate "until the last minute", although the deadline for joining or turning their backs on an agreement is also running out for them.

For the economy as a whole, affected by a drop in GDP, the extension is vital. With or without an agreement, there is no doubt that the system will be renewed, although the key on which the transition to normality depends depends on conditions such as the new term, the degree of exemptions from payments to Social Security and coverage. that it offers on workers subject to ERTE. Last Thursday the negotiations ended without an agreement, but with progress in the negotiation. The Government promised with the social partners to send them a new proposal in writing, which is the one being discussed today.

The possibilities are limited by the cost of the system for the coffers of the Ministries of Labor and Social Security. In the case of the first, according to the SEPE unemployment benefits report for the month of April, the payments to 2.3 million workers in ERTE meant the disbursement of approximately 2,000 million euros. If the beneficiaries are added for other types of contributory unemployment benefits, the bill rose to 2,882 million.

In the case of Social Security, the obligations to be assumed focus on the income that is no longer received due to the exemptions from the monthly quotas of the companies per worker and the benefits to self-employed workers. This invoice added to the pension payments led the Government to approve an extraordinary loan of 30,500 million euros to the ministry led by José Luis Escrivá last May.

The speed of the transfer of these salary expenses to the private sector is one of the points of disagreement. Sources present in the negotiation pointed out that Social Security is the most reluctant to assume the current situation any longer. Before the meeting, sources from the Ministry of Labor assured that "the Government has put a proposal on the table, with negotiating flexibility and adapting the ERTE system to new circumstances." According to CCOO, the Executive plans to eliminate ERTEs from total force majeure and maintain partial ERTEs from force majeure, facilitating the transition to ERTE of objective causes (economic, technical, organizational or production) by exonerating contributions to companies "with the same percentages "as stated in the ERTE of partial force majeure. Exemptions from Social Security contributions currently apply to ERTEs of force majeure, but not to those of objective causes.

The social partners are betting on another exemption scheme

Unions and employers had requested exemptions for the ERTEs from objective causes, since those of force majeure will decline after the end of the state of alarm and the others will be more common. However, the most complicated point of the negotiation is that companies are not exempt from quotas for recovering workers from ERTE, but rather that those resources are destined precisely to help companies that are in ERTE for objective reasons, such as unions and employers had asked. The latter insist that there is no point in rewarding those who leave the ERTE and penalize those who remain as proposed by Social Security, so they consider that the Government should change its mind.

In the new conditions, the control of the ERTEs would also be tightened by expressly prohibiting the hiring of workers to those companies that have employees suspended from employment, as well as greater vigilance of the overtime hours carried out in the companies. According to the UGT, the workers' unemployment collection rights in ERTE would remain at zero, although from September the amount of the benefits will become 50% of the salary instead of the current 70%.

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Know more

  • Social Security
  • José Luis Escrivá
  • Yolanda Diaz
  • UGT
  • CCOO
  • GDP
  • CEOE
  • Unemployment

De-escalation133,000 companies disappeared and a million temporary contracts extinguished: reconstruction begins

Coronavirus crisis The economy is outraged at the Sánchez-Iglesias and Bildu pact: without the labor reform, the 42,000 employees at ERTE are in danger

Unemployment Benefits Report SEPE records the payment of 2.3 million ERTE in April, 1.1 million less than the number of affected declared by the Government

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