On November 29, the Spanish will go back to the polls, and, shortly after, whoever gains the confidence of the Congress will have to shape his Government. Before the reshuffling of portfolios begins, I want to convey a request that we in the Consejo General de Graduados Sociales de España share without any cracks: that Work and Social Security come together again in a single ministry.
For almost four decades, since the early 1980s, both subjects lived together under the same roof, with different names and governments of every kind. In January 2020 they were separated. Since then, the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy and that of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations have moved forward along different tracks. Two legislatures later, the assessment we who work day to day in this area make is clear: the separation has been a very negative experience. It has generated lack of coordination in matters that are inseparable and has harmed both businesses and working people.
I speak from practice. Social graduates are around 22,000 professionals and we advise close to the 80% of the SMEs of this country in Labour Law and Social Security Law. Every day we check that a contract, a pay slip, a sick leave, or a retirement pension are part of the same reality. The employment contract creates the obligation to contribute. The salary determines the contribution base. Temporary incapacity suspends the contract and, at the same time, opens a benefit within the system. Separating the person who regulates one part from the person who manages the other forces us to sew together later what never should have been torn apart.
The most visible example is what we suffer every winter. The increase in the Interprofessional Minimum Wage depends on Labour, but it drags along the minimum contribution base, which is set in the Social Security contribution order. When one decision is delayed, the other waits. This year the SMI was approved on February 17, with retroactive effects from January 1. Professional offices had to remake payrolls and regularize contributions for months that were already closed, with the administrative cost and the insecurity that that entails, especially for the small company.
The same thing happens in the debate on absenteeism. Temporary incapacity has an employment-related side and a benefits-related side, and in recent years we have heard different messages from two ministries about the same issue. When the Administration speaks with two voices, the citizen receives noise, and the professional who advises them loses certainty.
There is also a less visible cost. Professional organizations, social agents, and the companies themselves need a clear counterpart. I have always defended a relationship between social graduates and the Administration that is reciprocal and not one-directional. That relationship becomes more complicated when each reform requires coordinating two calendars, two teams, and two sensibilities that, in a coalition government, may respond to different parties.
What we are asking for responds to a reason of effectiveness: socio-labor policy works better when whoever designs labor rules also responds to how they fit within the social protection system. Reuniting both portfolios would make it possible to plan in advance, avoid rules that contradict each other, approve on time the SMI and the contribution order, and address with a single perspective challenges such as absenteeism, flexible retirement, or the sustainability of pensions.
This is also not a party-based demand. We make this request to anyone who forms a Government after November 29, whatever its color. Social graduates provide service to both companies and working people equally, and from that position we see clearly what does not work.
The next Executive has the opportunity to correct a design error from its very first day, with a simple royal decree reorganizing departments and with an immediate benefit for millions of citizens. Work and Social Security are two sides of the same coin. It is worth having them again in the same hand.