The Ministry of , CC OO, UGT and CSIF, have agreed this Wednesday to meet throughout the month of January to promote the implementation of the 35-hour day and teleworking for employees of the General State Administration (excluding the Armed Forces and State Security Corps and Forces), as reported by the unions CSIF and UGT Public Services. This measure does not affect workers in the autonomous communities or city councils.
Specifically, the commitment of those responsible for Public Function is to implement the 35-hour day in the state administration in February, indicated the Secretary of State Administration of UGT, Public Services, Carlos Álvarez. The development of teleworking will certainly require more time, although it will also be promoted next January, this union official added.
These commitments have materialized in a meeting of the commissions to monitor the pending issues of the Framework Agreement for a 21st Century Administration, as well as the new one by CC OO, UGT and CSIF.
To carry out the implementation of the 35-hour day, which will occur for the first time in history in the State administration, those responsible for the Public Service Department have indicated to the unions that they will meet over the next month with the different heads of the ministerial departments to specify how to implement this reduction in the working day. These specifications could imply some exceptions in the application of the 35 hours.
Currently, the working day of state public employees is 37.5 hours per week. Since the 1990s, many public administrations began to adopt 35 hours per week, but the state administration never implemented them. In 2012, cuts motivated by the financial crisis eliminated this 35-hour day in all administrations and this prohibition was maintained until the general budgets of 2018, when many administrations have been recovering or implementing this day.
In addition, the new monitoring commission of the recently signed agreement (which has included a salary increase for public employees) has agreed to meet again on January 29 to establish the working groups of Equality, Digitalization and AI, Occupational Health and Public Employment for the development of the rest of the points of the agreement. CSIF has also proposed the creation of three new groups: Internal Promotion and Professional Classification, Administrative Mutualism and Passive Classes, and Labor Rights.
