PRESIDENT Pedro Sánchez has announced some of his plans for undoing the previous government's labour reform – including forced retirement and reducing the number of job contracts currently in use.
Staff will be required to clock in and clock out, but not to check up on them – the move is to ensure employers do not get any unpaid overtime out of them.
Contract types will be reduced to 'indefinite', 'temporary' and 'training or relief', for covering absences or as a lead-in to a new employee taking over from one about to retire.
Employees will be obliged, through their industries' collective working conditions agreements, to retire when they reach the cut-off age, in order to prevent those who are no longer able to give their best in full health being forced to carry on working, and to free up jobs for younger adults who need them.
Sánchez's 'Agenda of Change', as he calls it, will include an emergency youth employment plan, focusing on necessary work-based skills including competence in modern technology and in foreign languages.
The president has announced plans to push the newly-created Formación Profesional (FP) Dual, which allows school-leavers to combine paid work with their professional or vocational training.
Both an alternative to sixth form or a post-sixth form route, the FP system resembles the UK's BTEC structure, taking students from entry level, below GCSE, to the equivalent of a foundation degree or Higher National Certificate, being just one year off a full degree, but with a clear workplace-focused and vocational rather than academic slant.
The dual FP model means students will be able to put their underpinning knowledge gained in college into practice in the workplace, although it will not replace the traditional full-time or distance-learning FP models.
Companies across Spain and consortia of firms will be created to ensure a pool of paid work experience placements are available for all students who opt for the dual system.
Sánchez also wants to reinforce financial services regulation and supervision along a similar line to the FSA in the UK, by creating a body known as the National Financial Stability Authority and another referred to as the Independent Authority for Financial Services Customer Protection.
