The slogans that choose the main Spanish class unions CC OO and UGT to lead their manifestations of May 1 often fly their main claims at all times. This year, it is not trivial that the slogan chosen for the mobilization of this Thursday speaks of conserving all labor improvements as the first of the objectives: Protect the conquered, win futuresays the motto of Labor day held this Thursday in much of the world. Thus, in addition to conserving the new rights achieved, the unions put on other objectives: carrying out in Parliament the agreement with the government to reduce the legal maximum day from 40 to 37.5 hours per week and reform compensation for dismissal.
The labor legal system has experienced numerous modifications since, among other things, among other things, the minimum interprofessional minimum salary (which has increased 61% between 2018 and 2025); limit temporary hiring to the maximum (whose rate has fallen from 27% in 2017 to current 15%); establish and develop by law work and salary equality between men and women; regulate the labor of the new digital platforms and teleworking; end dismissals for absenteeism or after permanent disability; or make the daily registration of the day in all companies.
Many new labor rights acquired by workers in Spain have occurred in the last nine years, and start with the first major increase in the minimum wage in 2017 when, even with the last PP government with Mariano Rajoy in front and Fatima Báñez as Minister of employment – he rose 8% after very meager increases and freezing from the financial crisis of 2008. But it is from the arrival of Pedro Sánchez to power, in June 2018 Censorship to Rajoy, when changes in labor regulations to improve working conditions have occurred with greater intensity and have become a constant in government’s economic policy.
The majority of these reforms have been preceded by intentis negotiations, of a bipartite nature between employers and unions but, above all, tripartite, with the leading participation of two socialist ministers: Magdalena Valerio, which was the architect of the Registry of Compulsory Day; and Yolanda Díaz, a labor lawyer, who has promoted all the changes with which the Coalition Executive has tried to reverse the effects of the other 2012 labor market reform, which reduced dismissal and gave more power to companies in collective bargaining. As a statement of intentions, the first normative decision that Diaz brought ahead after arriving at office was the repeal of the objective dismissal for absenteeism.
One of the main negotiators in the battle for these new labor rights, the Secretary of Trade Union Action of Workers’ Commissions (CC OO), Maricruz Vicente, is clear about the normative changes that have meant greatest improvements for workers. First, he chooses the labor reform, which was a small contractual revolution, at least of concept, by making the contract indefinite as a general employment relationship, except exceptions; The Discontinuous Fixed Contract improved to increase its use; and eliminated the work contract, which was with which there was a greater abuse of temporality. He also recovered the primacy of sectoral collective agreements to re -pay the relationship of forces between entrepreneurs and workers in collective bargaining.
This election of the Labor Reform of 2022 as the most important of these last years is shared by the other great union negotiator of recent years, the Deputy Secretary General of UGT Trade Union Policy, Fernando Luján, another experienced laborist who coincides with Vicente that “there is a before and after the labor reform in the quality of employment”. For Luján, the labor reform was also the toughest negotiation of the last times of social dialogue. This rule was about to leave because there were government partners who unchecked on it, but was approved in Parliament thanks to a PP deputy, was wrong at the time of vote, and supported the text.
The second highest reform chosen by the CC OO leader is the derivative of the six tripartite agreements (government, employer and unions) to give a new regulation to the files of temporary employment regulation (ERT), in alternative response to the layoffs during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Better with expansive policies than with austerity, ”says Vicente.
Finally, the strong rise experienced by the minimum wage is the third most significant change for employees. This minimum salary rental soil has gone from 655 euros in 2016 to 1,184 in this 2025, it has gone from representing approximately 60% of the average salary, as noted by the European Social Charter. “Far from destroying employment,” as different economic organizations headed by the Bank of Spain predicted – it has been proven that these increases have contributed to improving the economy and productive fabric, “said the union responsible. Although there are few experts who, beyond this evolution of the minimum wage, consider that in general the increase in the rest of salary income remains one of the main issues pending the improvement of the Spanish labor market.
The toughest negotiation
But if asked about the most complicated negotiation, Vicente does not hesitate to point to the Rider lawwhich established that platform workers have a labor and non -commercial relationship or false freelancers with their employers, digital platforms. “It was nine months of intense conversations with the Executive and the entrepreneurs, but we managed to change, with a very short text, the conception of a new form of work that many pressures (business) wanted to leave without regular,” explains the union negotiator.
From UGT, they point to another improvement for workers that was not generated directly by a change in the Spanish legal system, at least for the moment. For Luján, the resolution of the European Social Rights Committee of the Council of Europe is also very remarkable, obtained before a claim for UGT, in which Spain is urged to modify compensation for dismissal to make it more appropriate and restorative. This union was able to file this claim thanks to the fact that the Government ratified the European Social Charter. Now Yolanda Díaz intends to open a new negotiation to, now, legally reform compensation for dismissal.
After the pull of European ears, several Spanish courts have been based on this ruling to recognize compensation for additional dismissal and, now, the Government intends to open a negotiation of the social dialogue to reform the calculation of dismissal and adapt it more to the personal circumstances of each worker.
Registration, conciliation and teleworking
From the most practical side comes the vision of an expert jurist in Labor Law. The Labor Partner of the Pérez-Llorca Office, Daniel Cifuentes, considers that two of the legal changes that have had more impact on the improvement of working conditions are the aforementioned increase in the minimum wage, and the recovery of the application priority of sectoral agreements, thanks to which companies can no longer use the standard created in the 2012 popular labor reform to devalue salaries through company agreements.
A second block of improvements, according to Cifuentes, are those related to the implementation of the time registration and the right to disconnection. “This is a new obligation for companies, which has made many business responsible to become aware of the existence of some times in time, such as extra hours, and that is also helping to change the business culture towards a more reasonable model,” said this labor labor. And the same has happened, he adds, with the obligation to make a salary record, where in many cases there are also evidence of inequalities that companies were not aware, according to Cifuentes.
The third and final block of new labor measures of recent years that have meant considerable improvements for employees are those related to conciliation. Specifically, the adaptation of the day, especially from the pandemic, when it is formed as the right of the worker; The expansion of child care permits, especially hospitalization or the new parental permit (still pending compensation) and finally teleworking.
On the contrary, Cifuentes, unlike what they think from the unions, considers that, the fall of temporality “has had a more statistical impact”, since small and medium enterprises as well as their advisors “are sought by tricks for the trial periods or the figure of the discontinuous fixation, make use of the highest temporality to the expected one.”
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