Spain and COVID 19: CCOO’s related activity

Luis Pariza from Spainish trade union Confederation Sindical de Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) reports:

The Health situation

This report was prepared on 27th April, 2020. The situation of the pandemic in Spain is not fixed, but dynamic, with a trend towards a decrease of new sick people, a turn down in daily deaths and an increase of people who have been cured by the healthcare system. Today the data is terrible:

• Patients diagnosed through PCR test: 209,465 (114,000 hospitalized)
• Diagnosed people deceased: 23,521
• Of the diagnosed people, cured: 100,875

Other unofficial calculations increase deaths in more than 8,000 undiagnosed people, and it is estimated that the undiagnosed patients and carriers of the virus without symptoms are more than 1 million.

The Government and the Parliament decreed the State of Alarm for 15 days, which is an exceptional situation provided for in the Constitution, which temporarily modifies the functioning of the Institutions and grants very broad powers to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. The first alarm period was decreed on 14th March and has been extended twice more. Further extensions seem to be decided upon.

The Government has taken various health decisions to expand and improve the functioning of the National Health System, which was weakened due to austerity policies, and has decreed the confinement of the population in their homes, the limitation of mobility, the closure of the educational system and social, sports and cultural activities, as well as the reduction of many economic activities. After more than 40 days, on Sunday, children under 14 were allowed to leave their homes for an hour per day, accompanied by an adult.

The combination of sanitary and population confinement measures has notably reduced the number of new infected people. The Government plans to agree on Tuesday, 28th April, a programme to relax the measures and will probably allow walking and sports in circumstances that are still unknown, as well as an agenda for opening non-essential shops under certain conditions.

In Spain, as in other countries, these decisions are causing very serious consequences for economic activity and social welfare: closure of thousands of small businesses, a very significant increase in unemployment rate amongst workers and the self-employed, an increase in those affected by a temporary reduction in their employment (ERTE), and numerous problems of social poverty that are increasing (housing, food, etc.)

The final impact that COVID 19 will have on the economy and employment is unknown. Current estimates announce that Spain’s GDP will decrease by over 10% and that one in three workers may be unemployed or in ERTE (temporary unemployment). It will depend on the duration of the limitations of economic activities, but the scenarios are bleak. That is why CCOO has warned of the need to reach agreements with business organizations and with the Government to mitigate these problems and lessen their social impact.

CCOO`s action:

Since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, CCOO decided to mobilize all resources to collaborate with the health authorities and established a strategy to prevent job destruction and protect workers.

CCOO’s objectives are:

• Fight the pandemic to achieve the health of the population.
• Lobby the Government and regional authorities to strengthen the National Health System, with new hires of health professionals
• Limit job destruction: avoid the closure of companies, prevent layoffs and ensure that the agreements reached in companies keep workers in a regulation of partial or temporary unemployment (ERTE), for which it is labour laws need to be adapted.
• Negotiate in companies, through ERTEs, the maintenance of Jobs and the necessary adaptation of working hours
• Generalize teleworking when possible
• Protect the health of workers. Reinforce the role of union delegates responsible for occupational health in companies, and support them during the negotiation of each workplace to protect from COVID 19.
• Health professionals are at exceptional risk and many of them have been infected due to the lack of protection.
• Negotiate with the Government the improvement and adaptation of the social protection system: access to unemployment insurance in more flexible conditions, with special attention to farmworkers, home service, temporary workers, and hostelry and tourism workers.
• Protect self-employed workers so that they have temporary income and special tax treatment
• Implement, as a matter of urgency, a minimum income system as proposed to the Parliament through a popular Legislative Initiative backed up by more than 700,000 signatures, and which was already contemplated in the Government Programme.
• Collaborate with the ETUC so that European unions have the same approach and the European Union develops a proactive strategy. The European Union has already adopted a financial package aimed at granting liquidity to companies, to States and to financing unemployment. But CCOO is demanding the implementation of a “Marshall Plan”, a multi-annual Plan for the economic and social reconstruction of Europe. It is currently under debate in the European Institutions, and when I write these lines, the amount of the plan and the conditions of its application are unknown. The European Commission has to decide on it before 6th May.

CCOO’s strategy includes four approaches:

1. Collaboration and agreement with other major Union Organizations: UGT and other sectoral and regional unions.
2. Dialogue and negotiation with the Government so that labour and social regulations adopted during this situation protect the working class and people with more social needs.
3. Dialogue with business organizations (CEOE and CEPYME) to agree on a framework for action in companies and jointly negotiate with the government on legislative changes
4. Mobilize the entire CCOO structure in all territories, sectors and companies to advise and protect male and female workers.

CCOO and UGT have established a protocol to act through collaboration and unity in proposals and negotiations with the Government and with business organizations. And we have also managed to act together in most sectors and companies.

With the Government, CCOO and UGT we have a permanent dialogue: with President Pedro Sánchez, with Vice President Nadia Calviño, with Vice President Pablo Iglesias and with Labour Minister Yolanda Diez. In addition, a public meeting is held weekly with the President and several ministers, the CCOO Secretary General, UnaiSordo, the UGT Secretary General, Pepe Alvarez and the President of the employers (CEOE) Antonio Garamendi.

The Government has approved during these weeks numerous Decrees that have been later endorsed in Parliament, modifying various labour and social security laws, most of which have the agreement of the unions. Employers have also supported some measures, although not others.

I will highlight some of the measures adopted:

• New more flexible regulation for the ERTE (temporary employment regulation file) so that workers are not fired, and they can be temporarily on the unemployment lists and their wages are paid, one part by unemployment insurance and the other by the company. . There are already more than 5 million workers in this situation. In many companies the ERTES have appeared before the labour authority with the union agreement, but in others CCOOs has not been able to negotiate and agree on the conditions with the employers.
• During the first two weeks of April all work activity was stopped except for essential activities. The Government agreed with the unions and business organizations legal changes to maintain wages and greater flexibility for the subsequent adaptation of work schedules.
• The Government drafted a decree to prohibit layoffs due to COVID 19 (employers disagree)
• A provision procedure was established to cease the activity of self-employed workers.
• Specific regulation to ease the payment of the unemployment insurance for workers with temporary contracts, for the agricultural sector and for work at home.
• Tighter standards are applied to protect workplace health in the workplace
• More favourable rules for sick leave due to illness
• The Government is preparing new legislation to implement a Minimum Income system within the Social Security system, taking into account the proposal that we CCOO and UGT have made. The debate is in relation to the character of this Income. The unions and the Government want it to be a permanent benefit of the social protection system, while the employers and the PP want it to be temporary, while the crisis lasts. The Government will publish its proposal in May.

We have reached some agreements with business organizations for companies to negotiate with the unions the appropriate protocols to reduce health risks: to adapt workplaces, use protective equipment and to modify procedures. It is a huge job, thousands and thousands of companies with thousands of specific problems. Activity for CCOO delegates in the workplace is very difficult, and CCOO advisors and managers at the sectoral and local levels work continuously.

However, in many companies health risks are very high because they refuse to comply with the procedures that must protect occupational health. Although the law requires that a specific plan be drawn up at each workplace, many small and medium-sized companies do not comply with this obligation.

In the opinion of CCOO, the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is the priority that Spain has right now and the return to economic activity and normal work must be done in a subordinate way to health criteria in the workplace In other words, no company that is not in a position to comply with strict security protocols should maintain its activities.

CCOO has mobilized all its militancy in the face of this difficult situation: more than 100,000 union delegates in the workplace; and to the entire network of union leaders in the sectors and territories: more than 8,000 people, as well as legal services and advisers and experts in finance, occupational health, etc. CCOO has reinforced assistance through the web and by phone: any worker who, anywhere in Spain, in any activity and in any company, needs the support and advice of CCOO, will have it 24 hours.

CCOO has produced manuals and tutorials that are available on the web (www.ccoo.es), which are permanently updated when labour and social regulations are modified.

Luis Miguel Pariza

Bilbao April 27, 2020