Officers will be able to make their hours more flexible to care for children of any age

Public officials are granted flexible hours to care for family members. The unemployment benefit reform approved in the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, May 21, includes measures to reconcile family and professional life to meet the transposition of the European directive on the matter. Among them, public workers can also adapt their schedules if they “need to care for sons and daughters over the age of twelve.”

These workers already had the right to a reduction in their working hours, with a corresponding reduction in their pay, when they had to directly care for a child under twelve or an elderly person who required “special dedication”. However, they lagged behind those employed in the public sector, who received the right to request this with the reform of the labor law in June 2023.

As for civil servants, the Basic Law of Public Employees operates outside of the Labor Law, which now modifies the reform promoted by the Ministry of Labor. Specifically, the decree law touches on Article 47 of that law which includes the provision that “the public administration shall adopt measures to make working hours more flexible in order to guarantee harmony between family and work life for public employees who have children under 18 years of age, as well as public employees who need to care for sons and daughters over the age of twelve.”

Its scope also applies to spouses or de facto partners, siblings, parents, grandparents and grandchildren, and others who live in the same household and who “cannot take care of themselves for reasons of age, accident or illness.” The novelty now is that public administrations will have to adopt “flexibility measures”. And, although it is not specified what they should be, it expands the limits on working hours and salary reductions, which were already contemplated, limited to a maximum of two hours.

The reform of the Basic Statute of Public Employees, which came into force on May 23, does not indicate how these flexibilities will be applied or whether they are mandatory. In the case of the private sector, the Labor Law indicates that companies will have a period of 15 days to negotiate with the person who requests this flexibility, “with maximum speed.” In any case, the approval remains in the hands of the company, which, if the change is denied, will have to justify it and/or propose an alternative to the employee, who “will have the right to return to the previous position” after the agreed period ends.

The unemployment benefit reform promoted by the Ministry of Labor is one of the regulations that this legislature has brought forward. The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, took the first version of the text to Congress in January, where it failed by a vote against, with the PP, Vox and Podemos. Those of Ioan Bellara opposed the “cut”, which meant the reduction of contributions for those over 52 years of age from 125 to 100%. With this obstacle overcome, the government has retrieved the royal decree that maintains the reform of the wording, referring to civil servants and some others, already with the consent of the unions.

The text approved last Tuesday maintains the increase of 90 euros in the subsidy, up to 570, it is extended to potential farmers, cross-border workers and people under 45 without family responsibilities and it equates the amount received by those employed part-time with those employed full-time. In addition, it includes a new subsidy for victims of gender violence and allows compatibility between the collection of unemployment benefits and work.