The Reduction of the working day is still on the table for discussion Uruguay although with a very low level of priority compared to other issues of greater urgency and relevance on the country’s political agenda. Taking advantage of the upcoming opening of the 10th Round of the Wages Councilhe PIT-CNT He considers that this could be a space to raise the issue again.
“From our perspective there is room for what the parties raise; The discussion may be more or less complex, but we have not found any obstacles to the issues being addressed, with agreement or not. The richer the elaboration and negotiation in the tripartite sphere, the better for society”, explained the president of the PIT-CNT, Marcelo Abdala, who was also the one who planted the seed of possibility during his speech at the event for the Labor Daylast May 1st.
Since then, different political figures —including the president Luis Lacalle Pou— referred to the question, which states in its bases that “the eight-hour law is already old.” The opinions are very different: from the ruling party they see it as something unlikely but open to discussion; while from the opposition of the broad front They bet on this new era of the labor market, to the point that they presented a project for the reduction of the weekly work day at the end of June.
Experiences support this new modality
In dialogue with Teledoce, Abdala explained that talking about a “reduction” of the working day does not necessarily imply that the daily shifts are reduced to 6 hours —thus giving rise to the discussion of the best possible way for the Uruguayan context—, nor that you work less.
“Productivity changed from 1915 to date. In a debate I presented a statistic of how the industrial physical volume index had evolved vs. the hours worked, and if that change in productivity that occurred in a very short time you led to a reduction in the working day, in reality you had to go right now to a substantial reduction in the working day”, pointed out the president of the union central, in this regard.
In this sense, Abdala said that “all the practical and international experiences They establish that when you reduce the working day, maintaining the salary, there is no negative impact on productivity; on the contrary, it is the other way around”. In addition, he remarked that, based on the data handled by the PIT-CNT, “everything indicates that productivity has grown enormouslyor if productivity did not increase, the intensity of work increased”.
“The issue is a change in working time, not only the reduction of the working day, it is the organization of working time in its different dimensions,” said Abdala, pointing out several of the aspects that, in his opinion, would benefit from a change in this area: “From the point of view of the quality of life of the workers, it is something positive. From the point of view of productivity, for us it is positive. From a point of view of more equal participation in the care system and gender issues, it is also positive. For health it is positive. And for the enjoyment of human life, because it is not just work, that people can participate in art, sports, culture, picking up their children from school, is positive”. “I think it is the most important labor law of this period,” he remarked.
In this line, the president of the PIT-CNT considered a “law that limits weekly work time to 40 hours a week” as a “positive recontra”. “But that does not rule out that before this law is approved, the issue can be studied in the Salary Councils,” he added.
Source: Ambito
