Spanish agreements focus on equality

Equality clauses were a feature of one-fifth of agreements signed last year in Spain, covering more than half of the country’s employees.

A report published last month by CCOO, one of the two major Spanish union confederations, found that 19.4% of agreements contained the clauses – which typically involve measures to improve the position of working mothers and to make it easier to combine work and family responsibilities, by extending the existing legal rights to maternity and dependency leave and allowing mothers to link holidays with maternity leave.

Equality clauses are more likely to be found in industry-level agreements than those at company level, meaning that 52% of employees are now covered by them.

The report, Acción Sindical No 3, also uncovered a growing number of company agreements that deal only with equal opportunities issues. These are most common in the general banking and savings sectors, and to a lesser extent in the chemicals and motor industries.