The Ministry of Labor has reached an agreement with CCOO and UGT to begin the process of increasing the number of days of leave due to the death of a family member and for new leave for palliative care, which will not have the support of employers.
The agreement provides for an extension of leave in the event of the death of a family member by up to 10 days and 15 days for new leave for palliative care of a family member. After the meeting convened this Monday by the Ministry of Labor, the Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, thanked the unions for “being up to the task”.
Yolanda Díaz also announced the agreement on her social networks. “We have reached an agreement with the unions to extend leave in the event of death and palliative care. Saying goodbye and crying without signing is not only a right, it is also common sense,” reads his message.
Pérez Rey stressed that “it is a shame, and I repeat, that Spanish employers are not in this agreement. It is incomprehensible. They will have to tell the businessmen and workers of this country why they excluded themselves from a regulation that puts our country in the modernity of what other countries in Europe do and how they can show a certain insensitivity.”
For Labour’s “number two”, this agreement should have been aimed at “everyone”, but the employers did not want to engage in “calculations which we do not understand what they are, but which have nothing to do with productivity, have nothing to do with absenteeism or have nothing to do with the culture of effort”.
Last week, Labor ended negotiations with CEOE and Cepyme, after their refusal to modify the death permit and put in place two new ones, mainly because of the cost this implies for employers.
Despite this, he assured that it was not a “less important and less decisive” agreement. “The fact that the employers are not there does not diminish its importance,” he said.
In this sense, the Secretary of State asked the Spanish employers’ union, instead of persecuting sick workers, to dedicate itself to improving the well-being of companies and workers in the country.
“We must not persecute those who get sick, what we must prevent is that workers get sick. And do you know how workers get sick? Precisely when they have to return to work two days after the death of a child,” he added.
The Ministry of Labor wants to extend the leave for death of a spouse, de facto partner or relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity up to 10 days and that it can be enjoyed until four weeks have passed since the death in continuous or discontinuous days, while it proposes to grant up to 15 days for the new palliative care leave of the spouse, de facto partner or relatives also up to the second degree due to consanguinity.
In addition, the royal decree that Labor wants to promote is the incorporation of a one-day permit to accompany a person when they are going to undergo euthanasia and to which any worker designated by them to accompany them will be entitled, whether or not there is a relationship.
They will get to work “now” to secure parliamentary support
In addition, Pérez Rey assured that they will get to work “right now” to guarantee the support of this norm from the political groups and expressed his belief that this norm will have the support of the parliamentary groups.
“I know that this is a need felt by the entire Spanish population, that is, those who suffer from the death of a son or daughter. Being grieved by the death of a family member is not a question of right or left, it is a question felt by everyone, whatever their social class and wherever they are,” he explained.
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