The Spanish employers' association has raised the tone this Tuesday against the Ministry of Labor. CEOE and CEPYME have announced that they will not attend the meeting called for next March 12 on the so-called “democratization of companies”, after the extraordinary meeting held this Monday by its Executive Committee.
Business organizations consider that the proposal promoted by the department led by Yolanda Díaz constitutes “a new exercise of interventionism” and also represents a violation of the right to private property.
In an international context marked by economic uncertainty, business associations criticize the timing of the initiative. The armed conflict in the Middle East, they warn, threatens to trigger a new global economic crisis. For this reason, they consider it “surprising” that the Ministry of Labor focuses its agenda on what they describe as a “populist and heavily ideological” attack against the business world, with possible negative effects on economic confidence.
Democratic deficit in the functioning of companies
According to CEOE and CEPYME maintain, this type of approaches does not contribute to improving the business climate in Spain. On the contrary, they warn that initiatives of this nature could increase distrust and discourage investment in the country, at a time when economic stability is especially necessary.
The business organizations also reject the premise that, in their opinion, underlies the debate: the existence of a democratic deficit in the functioning of companies. For the employers' association, raising this argument again implies rescuing a socioeconomic model that they consider typical of authoritarian regimes of the past. Furthermore, they maintain that this narrative represents a new disregard for collective bargaining, which they define as one of the “most genuinely democratic” spaces of the Spanish labor system and whose nature is enshrined in the Constitution.
In legal terms, employers' associations recall that Article 38 of the Constitution protects freedom of enterprise within the framework of a market economy. Likewise, they emphasize that the Workers' Statute recognizes companies' capacity for organization and direction, powers which, in their view, would be seriously relegated with the Ministry's proposal.
The path of collective bargaining
But beyond the specific content of the initiative, CEOE and CEPYME place the focus on the way in which the debate has been raised. The employers' associations reproach the Ministry of Labor for having promoted in recent years various labor reforms without the consensus of social dialogue, a process that —as they warn— could end up eroding democracy within the very business sphere.
In any case, they recall that the Spanish legal system allows any citizen to establish a company and assume business risk through the investment of their own resources.
With this scenario, the Executive Committee of both organizations has decided not to participate in the negotiation table opened by the Government on the democratization of the company. Instead, they assure that they will continue to bet on collective bargaining as the main way of understanding between companies and workers, as well as for the defense of the constitutional principles that underpin the current economic model.