Parlamentary version of 2012 Spanish labor reform: more flexibility and «single verses»

Abstract

The 2012 labor reform has reached the end of their procedure with the approval by the Spanish Parliament of the Law 3/2012 of 6 july. The final text has many amendments –85– aimed at improving technically reform measures and even to introduce some corrections by «human face» –what the author called «single verses»–. However, the large number of changes should not be misleading, because not only the hard core of the reform has not changed, but has intensified. The word that continues to dominate the story of the new legal and labor regulatory model is «flexibility», then Parliament has introduced greater flexibility for the employer in the distribution of the irregular hours and reduced the term of the «ultra-activity» –to extend their effectiveness beyond loose validity– to only one year. Consequently, the parliamentary speech supports and reinforces the configuration of the collective workers powers as dysfunctional for the economy while the private employer power would be more efficient. The data appeared so far about the effects of the reform, which show more layoffs and unemployment despite lower wages in a context of lower growth, it not seems to support this conviction.

In parallel, another actor in the production process of law, the Courts are beginning to build his own account of the labor reform, which contrasts in part with which has designed and propagated by the Government, first, and now by Parliament. Both the inertia of the past, as the conviction of their role as guarantors of the constitutional principles and values of worker protection, seem to be able to continue to act as forces of resistance to change model imposed by Parliament. Consequently, the final result of the reform will also depend on the doctrines and jurisprudence triumphant, forged from the study and application of new «Laws» without necessarily having to change the «Rights».

This study makes a detailed analysis of each and every one of the innovations of the Law 3/2012 in relation to Royal Decree Law 3/2012, presenting them sorted by dominant purpose of policy pursued right: even more flexibility, technical improvements to recover some lost legal security, humanitarian improvements and new commitments to modernize the employment policies. In addition, he realizes with details the court decisions up to now in relation to some of the hottest topics of the reform –temporal application of the rules of processing salaries; computation of compensation for unfair dismissal, on the assumption of nullity in layoffs collective redundancies...–. In the end, it makes an overall assessment about the validity and effectiveness of this reform, showing that far from closing the reform process, would have just written a new chapter, already under construction as new ones.