Díaz steps on the accelerator with the nationalists to avoid Citizens in the labor reform

The Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, intervenes in the act of delivery of the historical legacy of Marcelino Camacho and Josefina Samper to the Documentary Center of Historical Memory in Salamanca, this Thursday. JMGARCIA (EFE)

Yolanda Díaz has stepped on the accelerator to advance her labor reform in Congress with the usual nationalist allies. The priority of the second vice president and Minister of Labor is to find formulas that satisfy the ERC and PNV without having to resort to Citizens as a last option, an alternative that, however, does not displease the socialist part of the Government, for the moment outside of the negotiations. Díaz held a long conversation in Madrid on Wednesday night with the president of the Generalitat and leader of the ERC, Pere Aragonès, and next week he will travel to Catalonia to campaign for the reform.

Labor sources pointed out that Díaz's meeting with Aragonès, during a dinner taking advantage of a visit by the

to Madrid, offered "positive" results. The ERC leader was more cautious in public. He warned on TVE that the positions are still "very far away" and reproached the Government for not having fulfilled its promise to repeal the entire labor framework imposed by the PP in 2012. Esquerra insists that right now the position of its 13 deputies in Congress is to vote against the reform, when the decree law that regulates it is submitted for validation in the Chamber, on February 3.

Díaz and Aragonès agreed to continue negotiations between the Task Force and representatives of the ERC group in Madrid. At the same time, the vice president will travel to Barcelona next week to defend the reform in various public events. Next Friday he will meet with directors and workers of Seat and will speak before an assembly of 200 union delegates. In the meeting between Díaz and Aragonès, among other issues, one of the main ERC demands on labor reform was addressed: to recover the administrative authorization prior to the application of the ERE in companies, suppressed by the PP reform. The Generalitat had transferred this competence, which, according to Aragonès on TVE, if it had retained it, it would have allowed it to intervene in a high-impact labor dispute in Catalonia,the one that ended with the closure of the Nissan factory.

Díaz's team in the ministry has also maintained contacts this week with top-level leaders of the PNV and EH Bildu. In the case of the Peneuvistas, their demand, shared by the other nationalist forces, is to establish the prevalence of regional labor agreements over state ones. The Government already raised that proposal at the table of the social agents that negotiated the reform, but ended up withdrawing it due to the rejection of the employers.

Sources close to the negotiations explained that different solutions have been proposed on the table. One of them, according to government interlocutors, would be to incorporate the demands of the nationalists - the primacy of the regional agreement and the authorization of the ERE - to other regulations outside the labor reform, a way of satisfying the parliamentary partners without altering the text agreed upon at the table of the social agents, which could seriously compromise the support of businessmen. In the case of the authorization of the ERE, the ministry already included in its Strategic Plan of the Labor Inspection, approved last December, the commitment to approve a new regulation on the matter. But the nationalists are reluctant to this formula, according to the same sources, and it does not convince the socialist part of the Government either.Official Labor sources limited themselves to commenting that "several options are being considered" and that at the moment there is no decision on any of them.

Díaz's team sees more possibilities according to ERC and PNV. With EH Bildu, on the other hand, the positions are further apart, since the nationalist left insists on reversing the lowering of the dismissal rate approved by the Rajoy government in 2012, a condition that would surely cause the employers to disassociate themselves from the agreement. Díaz, in addition, has affirmed on several occasions that this measure was not even contemplated in the government agreement between PSOE and United We Can.

The Executive still has three weeks to go to close the support for a crucial vote for the future of the coalition between PSOE and United We Can. But Díaz wants to turn without waiting in the negotiations with the nationalists and other smaller groups, such as Más País, to avoid what would be the last resort: the nine Citizens deputies, willing to enter the agreement if the Government dispenses with its allies usual. The PSOE, which at the moment is leaving the vice president to lead the negotiations, would not view this option with bad eyes, unlike Díaz and United We Can.

The support of Ciudadanos, if it were accompanied by the rejection of all the nationalists, would not be enough to support the reform, although the Executive could also find some infrequent support.

The two deputies of the Unión del Pueblo Navarro, for example, who have hinted that they will not support the PP's no and choose to abstain.