If the holiday falls on a Saturday, do I have the right to another day off? This is what the law says.

Amending the Workers' Statute regarding holidays is done through an ordinary law: the content (holidays, breaks, etc.) can change, but the parliamentary procedure is the same as for any legal amendment. It can be initiated as a government bill or as a private member's bill by parliamentary groups or other subjects with legislative initiative. In all cases, the process goes through the Congress and, usually, the Senate, concluding with the sanction and publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE).

1. Nature of the reform of the Workers' Statute

The Workers' Statute is a norm with legal rank. Therefore, any amendment – including those related to holidays, work calendars, or breaks – requires a legislative initiative that creates, modifies, or repeals provisions of the current law.

According to the available information, the initiatives that can become law are:

• Government legislative initiative, called a bill.
• Private member's bill, which can be presented by deputies, parliamentary groups, the Senate, assemblies of autonomous communities, or by popular initiative.

In both cases, the purpose is the same: to create, modify, or repeal laws. The subject matter (labor holidays) does not change the type of procedure, only the content under debate.

2. Reform as a government bill

If the initiative comes from the Executive, the procedure is structured as follows:

• Approval in the Council of Ministers: the Government drafts and approves a bill to reform the Workers' Statute regarding holidays.
• Submission to the Congress of Deputies: the bill is sent to the Congress to begin parliamentary processing.

2.1. Processing in the Congress

According to the general scheme for bills:

• General debate: the Plenary of the Congress may debate the text as a whole. Groups can present total amendments to reject it globally. If the bill passes this phase, the process continues.
• Committee processing: it is sent to the competent committee (in this case, the one handling labor or employment matters). There, partial amendments are discussed and voted on, and a report is prepared.
• Debate and vote in Plenary: the committee report is debated in the Congress Plenary, where certain amendments can still be proposed. If it obtains the necessary support, the text is approved and sent to the Senate.

2.2. Processing in the Senate

In the Senate, the text approved by the Congress can:

• Be approved without changes, becoming ready for sanction and promulgation.
• Be amended, in which case the text returns to the Congress to decide whether to accept the amendments.
• Be vetoed, which means a global opposition to the reform. The Congress then decides whether to maintain or lift the veto.

2.3. Sanction, promulgation, and publication

Once the final text is set (after accepting or rejecting amendments and any veto), the sanction and promulgation by the King and its publication in the BOE proceed. From that moment, the amendment to the Workers' Statute regarding holidays comes into effect under the terms set by the law itself.

3. Reform as a private member's bill

The other route is that the amendment is processed as a private member's bill. According to the available information, private member's bills can be presented by:

• Deputies and parliamentary groups.
• The Senate.
• The assemblies of autonomous communities.
• The citizenship through popular legislative initiative, in the cases provided.

Their objective is also to create, modify, or repeal a law, and if approved, they become norms with the force of law.

In practice, a private member's bill that amends the Workers' Statute follows a very similar process to government bills:

• Presentation and consideration in the Congress or Senate, as applicable.
• General debate (if foreseen) and possibility to reject the entire text.
• Committee processing with partial amendments and report.
• Debate and vote in the Plenary of the originating Chamber.
• Submission to the other Chamber (usually the Senate) for approval, amendment, or veto.
• Sanction, promulgation, and publication in the BOE once the final text is set.

4. Difference with other initiatives without the force of law

It is important to distinguish these reforms from non-legislative motions (PNL). According to the information consulted, PNLs:

• Do not create, modify, or repeal laws.
• Are limited to urging the Government or other institutions to act or take a position.
• Do not have binding legal effects, even if approved.

Therefore, a PNL on labor holidays may have political or guiding value, but does not serve to amend the Workers' Statute: to change the norm, a bill or private member's bill processed through the ordinary legislative procedure described is essential.

With the available information, it is not possible to detail normatively and exhaustively the specific powers of the Ministry of Labor to regulate work calendars in Spain. It can be stated, in general terms, that the Ministry cannot "create" by itself the basic framework of working hours and calendars, because that core is reserved for the law approved by the General Courts and subject to the Constitution. The Ministry can, if applicable, issue regulatory norms of development within the margins enabled by the law, but cannot alter by regulatory means what the law itself has established nor replace collective bargaining between companies and workers' representatives. Furthermore, both laws and regulatory norms are subject to constitutional and parliamentary controls.

1. General framework of distribution of powers

In the Spanish constitutional system, the distribution of powers distinguishes between:

• Laws: approved by the General Courts (Congress and Senate). They set the basic framework of rights and obligations, including the essential structure of labor regulation (working hours, breaks, holidays, etc.).
• Regulations: approved by the Government (royal decrees) or by ministries (ministerial orders), which can only develop and apply what is provided by laws, without contradicting or modifying their essential content.

According to the available information, the Government has a limited margin of action even against legislative activity itself. For example, article 134.6 of the Spanish Constitution, cited in the documentation, allows the Government to oppose the processing of amendments or bills only when they imply an increase in expenditure or a reduction of income compared to the General State Budgets. This shows that the Executive, including its ministries, does not fully control the content of laws: it only has a limited veto in budgetary matters, not absolute control over substantive matters.

2. Constitutional limits to governmental regulation

The information consulted also explains that laws can be challenged before the Constitutional Court through a constitutional appeal, which can be filed, among others, by the President of the Government or a certain number of deputies or senators, and that there is also the question of constitutionality raised by ordinary judges and courts.

This implies that any attempt to regulate work calendars, whether through a law or a lower-ranking norm promoted by the Ministry of Labor, is subject to two major limits:

• Respect for the Constitution: if a regulation on working hours or calendars violates constitutional rights or invades powers, it can be annulled by the Constitutional Court.
• Respect for the normative hierarchy: a ministerial order from the Ministry of Labor cannot contradict a law; if it did, it could be annulled by ordinary courts and, indirectly, questioned for its compliance with the constitutional framework.

3. Reasonable scope of the Ministry of Labor's action

Based on this general scheme, and without having the specific regulations, only the following can be stated in abstract terms:

• The basic framework of working hours, breaks, minimum holidays, and fundamental guarantees is set by norms with legal rank, approved by the General Courts.
• The Ministry of Labor can propose government bills on these matters, but their approval depends on Parliament and is subject to the budgetary limits of article 134.6 of the Constitution.
• Once the law is approved, the Ministry could issue development and execution regulations (for example, on technical aspects of work time organization), provided a law enables it and the essential content set by the law is not altered.
• Specific work calendars in companies and sectors are usually configured, in the Spanish model, through collective bargaining and agreements at the company level, not by direct and generalized imposition by Ministry orders, unless a law expressly provides something very specific.

4. Limitations of the available information

There are no concrete references in the consulted sources to current labor legislation nor to specific regulatory provisions issued by the Ministry of Labor on work calendars. Neither are there details about the exact distribution of powers between the State and autonomous communities in this matter nor about the operational role of the Labor Inspectorate regarding calendars and working hours beyond the general scheme of legality control.

Therefore, it is not possible, with the information provided, to specify which aspects of work calendars must be in the law, which correspond to collective bargaining, and which can be regulated by Ministry of Labor regulations. It can only be concluded that the Ministry acts within the framework set by the Constitution and laws approved by Parliament, with clear limits to its unilateral regulatory capacity and under the eventual control of the Constitutional Court and ordinary courts.

In the last state legislature (the current one, started after the 2023 general elections) no reform of the Workers' Statute specifically related to the organization of working hours has yet been approved. The general legal limit remains 40 hours per week and the proposed changes (reduction of working hours, new time registration model, etc.) have remained as failed bills or draft royal decrees for regulatory development. The basic legislation of the Statute regarding working hours (articles 34 and 37 of the consolidated text approved by Royal Legislative Decree 2/2015) therefore remains unmodified in this legislature. Based on the available sources, the number of approved reforms of the Workers' Statute on working hours in the last legislature is 0.

Attempts at legal reform on working hours that were not approved

The main attempt to reform working hours in the Statute in this legislature was the Bill to reduce the maximum working hours from 40 to 37.5 hours per week, promoted by the Ministry of Labor. According to the newspaper Demócrata, this bill was rejected in Congress as total amendments from PP, Vox, and Junts succeeded, so it was not even debated in detail (article on working hours reduction). Another Demócrata article confirms that, after that failure, the legal limit of the ordinary working day remains at 40 hours per week and that the Government has not registered a new equivalent bill (analysis of FREN on time registration).

In parallel, the BNG registered a Private Member's Bill to reduce the working day to 35 hours per week by amending the Workers' Statute. Demócrata details that this was the “second occasion” the Congress addressed a legal reduction of working hours and that the proposal was also rejected in Plenary (new setback to working hours reduction and debate on BNG proposal). None of these initiatives therefore became law or modified the Statute text.

The Economic and Social Council itself issued an opinion on the Preliminary Draft Bill for the reduction of the maximum duration of the ordinary working day, time registration, and the right to disconnect, detailing the intention to reform article 34.1 (reduction of working hours to 37.5 hours) and to introduce a new article 34 bis on time registration (CES opinion 1/2025). But that text did not complete the normative cycle nor was it approved in the Courts.

Reform of time registration by regulatory means

Several Demócrata articles explain that the Government has opted to develop time registration by regulation without touching the law, that is, without reforming the Statute. The Ministry of Labor promoted a draft Royal Decree to make digital time control mandatory, accessible remotely and verifiable in real time: its urgent processing was announced in the Council of Ministers (urgent processing of time registration), it was explained that it is a development of the Statute articles on registration and working hours (new time registration proposed) and it was emphasized that, by being done by regulation, the sanctioning regime contained in the Workers' Statute Law is not modified (modification of registration without passing Congress).

Subsequently, the Council of State issued a critical opinion and “rejected” the draft Royal Decree, forcing Labor to rethink the text (Council of State report on time registration). Another article explains that, after that opinion, the green light to the new time registration has been postponed and remains under discussion (postponement of new time registration). In all these cases, regulations are discussed, not norms with the force of law that alter the literal text of the Statute.

Context: recent relevant reforms prior to the legislature

Several references from other sources recall that the daily time registration was introduced in article 34 of the Statute through Royal Decree-Law 8/2019, of March 8, a norm approved in a previous legislature. This is recalled, for example, by the CES opinion of 2025 when analyzing the current framework (opinion 1/2025), and is reflected in many collective agreements published in the BOE that refer to article 34 after the reform, such as those of F. Faiges, SL (F. Faiges agreement), Schweppes SA (Schweppes agreement), the integral water cycle (water cycle agreement), Automáticos Orenes (Orenes agreement), Ahorramas (Ahorramas agreement) or non-regulated education (non-regulated education agreement).

Doctrinal analyses are also cited explaining how the 2019 reform modified article 34 to strengthen control of overtime (FIDE analysis on working hours reform). But all those modifications were outside the temporal scope of the last legislature you ask about.

Conclusion

With all these pieces, the balance is clear: in the current legislature, no law or royal decree-law has yet been approved that has modified the text of the Workers' Statute regarding the organization of working hours. There has been intense pre-legislative activity (preliminary drafts, opinions, failed bills) and regulatory activity (draft royal decrees on time registration), but without being reflected in effective reforms of the Statute. Therefore, the number of approved reforms of the Workers' Statute on working hours in the last legislature is zero.