In Spain, late working hours, particularly in bars, shops and restaurants, are causing lively debate.
Regularly criticized by the unions, the Spanish organization of working hours returned to the forefront this week after comments from the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, who were very critical of the staggered working hours which the country is customary.
“It is unreasonable for a country to open its restaurants until one in the morning.
It’s madness to continue to extend opening hours indefinitely,” declared the leader of the radical left platform Sumar, partner of the socialists in Pedro Sánchez’s government.
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“It is clear that the schedules in our country are very different from those in Europe,” she added Tuesday, speaking to journalists.
According to this lawyer from the Communist Party and specialized in labor law, “from 10 p.m., working hours are nighttime and present risks for the mental health” of employees.
Raise of shields on the right
On the right, these statements immediately provoked an outcry.
Yolanda Díaz wants “everyone to go home to read the communist manifesto with a lamp and a cup of tea,” quipped the general secretary of the Popular Party (PP) in Madrid, Alfonso Serrano.
“Spain has the best nightlife in the world, with streets full of life and freedom (…) They want to make us puritans, socialists, without soul, without light and without restaurants,” added the regional president from Madrid and figure of the PP, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
A point of view shared by organizations in the sector.
“We reject any proposal that calls into question the Spanish way of life, which distinguishes us and differentiates us in the tourism market,” said España de noche (Spain at night), federation of the world of entertainment and leisure. .
“Explored” days
According to Eurostat, the number of weekly hours worked in Spain is within the average of European countries.
But the working days are more spread out and the end of the day is later: Spain is thus the country in Europe where people work the most after 6 p.m.
“The problem is that working days are often very fragmented”, with long mid-day breaks and the obligation to return to work late, which “does not allow one to organize one's personal life properly », Explained to AFP Miguel Basterra, professor of labor law at the University of Alicante (south-east).
An organization linked, according to him, to the Spanish way of life.
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In 2022, Yolanda Díaz had already launched a reflection on the subject, as part of a bill on the “use of working time”.
A report commissioned from a group of 60 experts then recommended, in particular, making the days more compact and closing businesses earlier.
This reflection was suspended due to the anticipated legislative elections of July 2023. But Yolanda Díaz indicated that she wanted to relaunch it, as part of the discussions on the reduction from 40 to 37.5 hours of the working week, provided for in the agreement of government passed between Sumar and the socialists.
The risk is that we will be “more boring than the Nordic countries, where you go home at 6 p.m., because nothing is open anymore,” the president of Hostelería de España warned this week , the main federation of hoteliers in the country, José Luis Yzuel.