The Labour reform approved with Royal Decree-Law 3/2012 gives companies more flexibility to modify the conditions of workers' contracts unilaterally with regard to salaries, schedules and dismissals. There have also been modifications regarding the reconciliation of work and family life.
The Government wanted to facilitate the conciliation of workers with children or disabled persons, but in spite of this, in the reform there has only been small modifications at status of workers referred to the permission of breastfeeding, reduced working hours and vacations not enjoyed by maternity.
As for the lactation permit he Article 37.4 It is worded as follows: in the cases of the birth of a child, adoption or foster care in accordance with article 45.1.d) of this Law, for the breastfeeding of the child until he is nine months old, workers will be entitled to one hour absence of work, which may be divided into two fractions. The modification introduced in this section is the right to the lactation permit until the minor turns nine months also in case of adoption or foster care.
Also change the term workers by workers, this means that before the breastfeeding permit was recognized to the woman, it can now be requested and enjoyed indistinctly by the mother or the father in case they both work, noting that this permission constitutes an individual right of the workers, but can only be exercised by one of the parents in case both work.
The working day reduction It is left with the following wording in the Article 37.5: who, for legal guardianship reasons, has a child under eight years of age or a person with a physical, psychic or sensory disability, who does not perform a paid activity, will be entitled to a reduction in the daily workday, with the decrease Proportional salary between at least one eighth and a maximum of half the duration of that. The novelty is that the daily term is included to specify the reduction of the working day to which workers with children under eight years of age or disabled are entitled.
He section 6 of this article makes it clear that from now on, collective agreements will be able to establish criteria on the schedules in which the reduction of working hours can be enjoyed. excusing the worker to notify fifteen days in advance in the request for a reduction in working hours in case of force majeure. Change the article dealing with the procedure for resolving discrepancies, before it was 138bis of the Labor Procedure Law and now it is established that the discrepancies will be resolved by the social jurisdiction through the procedure established in article 139 of Law 36 / 2011, of October 10, regulator of the social jurisdiction.
As for the vacations not enjoyed by maternity he Article 38 (3) stipulates that in the event that the holiday period coincides with a temporary disability for contingencies other than those indicated in the previous paragraph that makes it impossible for the worker to enjoy them, totally or partially, during the calendar year to which they correspond, the worker may do so once end your disability and provided that no more than eighteen months have elapsed from the end of the year in which they originated. In other words, it grants 18 months to be able to take vacations that have not been enjoyed due to pregnancy, childbirth, lactation or suspension of the contract.
The modifications made are barely noticeable so We hope that more changes will be made in the future in terms of reconciling work and family life.
