The Government reactivates an observatory of sick leave to combat the increase in absenteeism | Economy

This Monday, the Executive has resumed negotiations with the CC OO and UGT unions and the CEOE-Cepyme employers’ associations to introduce changes in the management of sick leave due to temporary disability, before After the meeting, the Secretary of State for Social Security, Borja Suárez, has announced the “imminent” creation of a Temporary Disability Observatory, in which, in addition to this department, the Ministry of Health and the social partners will be present.

The observatory, for which there is no specific start date, is nothing new. This was recalled by the head of Labor Relations at CEOE and representative of the employers’ association in the negotiation, Rosa Santos, who recalled that the creation of the analysis body was already included in the Royal Decree on Social Security measures, agreed upon by the Government and the social agents.

More than a year ago, the text already urged the Government to “within 3 months” create a state commission – which is what what was called this Monday “observatory” – was then called to analyze temporary disability due to common contingencies. Said study was to be carried out “including monitoring the causes, incidence and duration of the processes; proceeding to study the impact that the response of the National Health System, in each of the areas, has on the temporary disability processes.” In addition, the legal text requested that the commission establish “lines of action aimed at protecting the health of workers and thus reducing the number of processes and their duration, including the monitoring and evaluation of said actions.”

Suarez explained this Monday that Social Security, the Ministry of Health and the social partners will be present at the observatory. However, the autonomous communities will not attend, despite being directly responsible for primary care health services, as well as specialists, whose doctors are in charge of the entire sick leave process.

In fact, the importance of regional health officials is such that another measure, also agreed in December 2024, was the creation of agreements between the National Social Security Institute and the autonomous communities. These had to materialize an agreement that the employers and the unions had reached a year earlier so that, always with the consent of the doctor and worker, diagnostic tests in sick leave of musculoskeletal origin could be referred to the mutual societies collaborating with Social Security.

The royal decree of December 2024 also provided for the state monitoring commission to carry out “surveillance and control of the execution of the agreements of public health services with mutual insurance companies, as well as to evaluate their operational functioning, study and propose the adoption of necessary measures to improve their effectiveness and promote their application.”

But one of the first things that the future observatory, if it is established soon, will be able to verify precisely the lack of development that these agreements have had. At the moment, only three communities (Catalonia, Asturias and the Balearic Islands), in addition to Ceuta and Melilla, have ratified these agreements. Suárez explained that the slowness in signing agreements between the central Administration and the autonomies is due to “the many actors” that influence these processes. For this reason, he assured that, at this Monday’s meeting, they have agreed that employers and unions, “each within their level of dialogue”, reinforce the negotiations so that these agreements are signed.

Meeting next Monday

The Government has also committed to forwarding in the coming days the proposals on streamlining the management of sick leave due to temporary disability that it already conveyed to employers and unions in the last meeting held on October 13. The parties have agreed to meet again next Monday although no major modifications are expected in the new text which, according to the Secretary of State for Social Security, will have some correction only in wording, but not in content.

Among the measures proposed by the ministry, there will be some that will be regulatory in nature and that, therefore, the Government will be able to approve without going through Congress. This is the case of the regulation to establish a new Central Disability Assessment Unit, which will include the disability assessment teams that are determined. This body, which will depend on the National Social Security Institute, will manage the sick leave processes that, generally because they last more than a year, become managed by this body.