One million public employees, shielded from targeted dismissal

The new labor reform contains good news for personnel hired in public administrations. These workers, whose number is around 1.1 million According to the most recent data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), they are shielded from the possibility of suffering a dismissal for objective reasons or a record of employment regulation.

This will be the effect of the repeal of the sixteenth additional provision of the consolidated text of the Workers’ Statute Law. Thanks to that clause, since the labor reform approved by the Government of Mariano Rajoy, the ministries, municipalities, autonomous communities and other public bodies were authorized to apply to their hired personnel the so-called ETOP dismissal (acronyms that respond to economic, technical, organizational or production causes).

Moreover, before the year 2012, there are judicial decisions that affirm the submission of Administrations of any level to the law and labor law in force, which opened the door to apply personnel adjustments of that type. With the new labor market reform, however, that possibility is completely closed.

It is true that, according to the negotiation process between the Government and the social agents, this new veto has its limits since, for example, it will very possibly not apply to the personnel of public companies. In other words, the staff hired from corporations such as Correos, Navantia, Efe Agency or RTVE Yes, it may be the object, if necessary in the future, of Eres. For this, those responsible for these corporations are negotiating in extremis with the Government so that the Executive considers this exception in the labor reform.

As for the officials, nothing changes in their employment status, neither in the most recent reform nor with the one of 2012, since these wage earners who won their position by opposition are not subject to ordinary labor legislation.

Draft effects

However, it is important not to underestimate the effects of this new armor from which it will benefit a significant part of the 3.4 million of people who, according to the Labor Force Survey, currently work for the public sector. The labor experts consulted are clear that “the public sector is going to show an inflexibility from the labor point of view even greater than that which has been dragging on for decades.” Moreover, these experts draw attention to the scarcity of resources that public bodies will have within their reach when they are doomed to adjustments “due to budgetary insufficiencies or due to organizational reasons”, such as those that the introduction of a new technology that alters the organization of work.

The proverbial inflexibility of the workforce in the public function will be even greater

“The only way out will be early retirement,” say these experts who, in a row, point out the paradox that the Government seeks to discourage this measure in the reform of the pension system, the first pillar of which is already underway.

There is also the circumstance that the new armor against the objective dismissal or collective of employees hired, comes at a particularly delicate time for the Administrations considering the record increase that their workforce has experienced since the beginning of the epidemic.

Moreover, the relaxation of the health situation with respect to the situation raised during the Great 2020 lockdown It has done nothing to change that situation in recent quarters.

Historical levels

As a result, the total number of employees by State, autonomies and local corporations reached a historical rate in proportion to the total workforce: 21.1%. One in five people willing to work in our country thus exercises their work in public administrations.

The total number of employees by State in proportion to the total workforce is 21.1%

In addition, the total number of people employed in the public function reached 3.4 million, a figure that surpasses the also unprecedented mark that was achieved in 2011, in the midst of the last financial crisis that began in 2008, under the Presidency of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (3.3 million people).

The Administration also faces, from the point of view of the management of its staff, the recently approved Law of Urgent Measures for Reduction of Temporary Employment in the public sector, given the boom that job insecurity has experienced in the fields of health and education. This rule contains provisions such as the one that allows an intern who has held his post for more than five years to become a civil servant after a merit test.