Yolanda Díaz exhibits unity with Catalan unions to break ERC in labor reform

Yolanda Díaz has eight days to achieve a double goal: that labor reform will go ahead and that it will do so with the majority of the investiture, that is, with a coalition that aligns the majority of progressive formations in Congress. With this mission between eyebrow and eyebrow, the Vice President and Minister of Labour has organized a two-day trip to Barcelona with which she wants to show almost total harmony with the most representative Catalan trade unions, CCOO and UGT. He did so this Wednesday, when he met with the leadership of both and participated in an Assembly of the Federation of Workers' Commission services.

Following meetings with trade union representatives, Díaz had dinner Wednesday with Roger torrent, the Minister of Labor, before whom the Vice President outlined the improvements that the new working framework for workers in Catalonia would entail. Torrent has insisted in recent days on the need for labour reform to take into account competition issues, such as restoring the Generalitat's ability to authorize ERES and also the prevalence of the territorial agreement, two aspects that have not been included in the decree. This is the first time that both politicians have met and plan to do so again in the future, even after the vote on labour reform, to deal with the various outstanding issues in their respective portfolios.

The Vice President has taken advantage of her passage through Barcelona to send an unequivocal message to Palau de la Generalitat, in which Díaz and his team hopes to disrupt negotiations with the ERC parliamentary group. The Republicans, with their 13 seats, are the key piece of the parliamentary sum that the work team wants for next February 3rd, when the vote on the decree on the new labor framework will take place. "I am convinced that this reform will come out. No one could tell the workers that a rule that is going to be an improvement, will not be applied," Díaz warned ERC.

The vice President's unit with Javier Pacheco (CCOO) and Camil Ros (UGT), the latter with excellent relations with the Republicans, is actually the best letter from the government to convince ERC. Pere Aragonès holds the presidency of a territory where trade unions are fully aligned with labor reform, which no other party is negotiating with can say. In the Basque country, the majority of the ELA and LAB trade unions have considered the norm insufficient and are putting strong pressure on the PNV. But in Catalonia things are just the other way around. The first leftist President in more than a decade can start his term by opposing the main trade union organizations.

"we believe that this is a good agreement, a balanced agreement and that Catalan workers will win," the UGT General Secretary said without half of it. "we want to send a very clear message to the parties: we want this agreement to be ratified by the majority of the left that knocked down Rajoy, who invested this government and approved the budgets," Ros said. ERC's relations with this union are more than fluid. Without going any further, the Republican negotiator of labor reform, Congressman Jordi Salvador, was General Secretary of the UGT in Tarragona.

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More forceful has been Javier Pacheco, leader of Commissions in Catalonia, who has charged the parties that refuse to support this reform by ensuring that they do not respect the representativeness of the social dialogue. "No one has to give us lessons on what popular sovereignty represents," said Pacheco, who considered that while the parties have the legitimacy to decide their vote, it would be a "political short-sightedness" that would not respect what was agreed by the three actors in the concertation, that is, trade unions, employers and the government. "we would not understand that a decision contracted to convalidate perpetuates the conditions of the PP for many years. This is not a gunshot to the foot, it is a shot in the head," said the Secretary General of CCOO Catalunya.

Before the representatives of the Assembly of the Service Federation, the Vice President has passionately defended the Royal Decree-Law that will take place next week in Congress and which will, she said, be a "historic change" in the framework of labor relations. "to the voices that say this is makeup, I say, affectionately, that I think the scope of the norm should be better studied," he said. "this norm changes the paradigm of labor relations in our country," he said.

Despite press insistence, the Vice President has taken care to be exquisite when referring to ERC, a party from which some complaints have emerged about recent statements made by other members of the Government regarding the negotiation of labour reform. "I respect ERC deeply, I know about the party's social sensitivity," he said. And he finished saying, "I only have good words for the party that accompanied in a healing labor policy during the pandemic."

Diaz and his relations with the Republicans, both in Madrid and Barcelona, have been very good. For the time being. Because from en Comú Podem, which has approved the last two budgets in Catalonia and has become a more reliable partner than the Cup for Aragonès, they warn that the honeymoon would end if ERC rejects labor reform next week.

As is the case with the offense, it is not the one who wants but the one who can. In the case of the Minister of Labor, there is no doubt that she has powerful weapons to squeeze Republicans. More difficult to predict is whether it will be enough to change a decision ERC has practically taken against the decree.