The modification of the working hours record, one of the main flags of this legislature for the Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, still has room to move forward despite the call for elections on November 29 and the dissolution of the Cortes Generales.
The Executive plans to push this reform forward through a Royal Decree, a regulatory route that does not require subsequent validation either in the Plenary of Congress or in the Permanent Deputation, the body that assumes the functions of the Chamber when the Cortes are dissolved or its mandate has expired.
The Permanent Deputation only has direct legislative competence between legislatures to debate and vote on the validation or repeal of the Royal Decree-Laws of "extraordinary and urgent necessity" approved by the Government.
In this specific case, the format chosen by the Executive for the reform of the working hours record is that of a simple Royal Decree, so that, as it is not a law, it would not require validation and could be approved without obstacles in the Council of Ministers and come into force directly.
Just a few days ago, the Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, expressed his confidence that during this month of October the path would be definitively cleared for the Council of Ministers to approve the reform of the working hours record, "a key element to control the effective working time in the country and avoid a good part of the abuses that concentrate on the performance of unpaid overtime or habitual excesses of working hours."
This regulation received an unfavorable opinion from the Council of State at the time, so the Ministry of Labor has been adjusting the draft for months, in coordination with the Ministry of Economy, to adapt it to the observations raised by the consultative body.
"We have been working to refine that regulation, we have worked to ensure that the objections raised by the Council of State are, as far as possible, overcome and, therefore, to guarantee the integrity and legal security of the text," defended Pérez Rey, who added that this process can already be "considered concluded."
In this line, the 'number two' of Labor emphasized the "very considerable" effort made to meet the demands of the Council of State, reinforcing the guarantees of data protection according to the criteria of the Data Protection Agency and the Council of State itself, and increasing the weight of collective bargaining in the design of the registration system.
"Therefore, I believe that we are already in a position to advance in the processing of this new time registration that has to be digital, that has to be accessible for the Labor Inspection and that must definitively eliminate the practices of writing on a blank sheet when entering and leaving, which are always synonymous with fraud," he explained.
Consequently, despite the electoral advance to November 29 and the dissolution of the Cortes, the Government still has a time margin to approve the reform of the time registration by Royal Decree before the election date.
Increase of the SMI, in doubt
On the other hand, it is not so certain that the Executive will undertake a new increase of the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI) before the elections, although this measure is also articulated by Royal Decree.
The foreseeable thing is that it will be the next Government coming out of the polls that decides on the level of the SMI for 2027. If the decision is delayed beyond January, it could be applied retroactively, as has already happened on other occasions.
The idea of Yolanda Díaz's department, at least until a few days ago, was to convene this very month the advisory commission of the Minimum Interprofessional Salary to start its preparatory work for the 2027 update.
The reform aimed at preventing bonuses and salary supplements from absorbing the increases of the SMI also remains up in the air. This legal adjustment was planned in the transposition of the European directive on adequate minimum wages.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Economy submitted the draft Royal Decree for transposition to public hearing at the end of February 2026 and was waiting to receive reports from various bodies, including the Council of State, before its final approval.
Reform of the Occupational Risk Prevention Law
What is already ruled out is that the reform of the Occupational Risk Prevention Law can be approved before the elections, which the Government green-lighted in April as a draft law in the Council of Ministers.
The text has not even returned to the Council of Ministers as a bill, so it has not begun its parliamentary journey in Congress.
Neither will the modification of the dismissal regime to adapt it to the demands of the European Social Charter move forward, unless the Executive opts to promote it via Royal Decree or Royal Decree-law, assuming the risk that the Permanent Deputation could reject it.
Labor was already preparing a regulatory proposal to change the dismissal regulation after receiving the first contributions from the unions and facing opposition from the employers' association CEOE, although the Ministry itself acknowledged the complexity of advancing this reform in a context marked by the judicial debate on dismissal and pending pronouncements from the Constitutional Court.
Pay Transparency
Another of the open dossiers in Labor before the electoral call was the transposition of the community directive on pay transparency, whose draft is already closed in its essential aspects.
The Ministry's objective was to take advantage of the upcoming meeting, initially scheduled for tomorrow Tuesday, to finalize the core elements of the regulation or, at least, leave only technical loose ends pending to immediately complete its transposition.
This directive aims to strengthen pay equality and transparency in companies to combat pay discrimination between women and men. If the Council of Ministers approved this transposition in the form of a Royal Decree, it could also be approved before the elections.
However, although the draft of the regulation was disseminated in August, the receipt of several reports was still pending, which could prevent it from being approved in time before November 29. In any case, the deadline set by Brussels to incorporate this directive into Spanish law expired on June 7.
Among the labor initiatives that were already in parliamentary processing and that will be paralyzed by the dissolution of the Cortes are the Intern Statute, the reform to allow early retirements without penalty for those who have contributed more than 40 years, and the bonuses on employer contributions for employers in Ceuta and Melilla.