Individual time-banking in Spanish chemical industry

The national agreement for the 183,000 employees in the Spanish chemical industry signed last month provides for individual time-banking for the first time.

This system, under which employees are able to accumulate rest periods and compensatory time-off for overtime, gives individuals greater control of their working time. The agreement also reduces maximum annual working time by 12 hours over the three years of the agreement, four hours in 2002 and eight hours in 2003.

Pay increases by 1.2% more than forecast inflation in 2001 making a total of 3.2% for this year, plus 1.0% more than forecast inflation in 2002 and 0.9% more than forecast inflation in 2003. In addition the agreement guarantees that workers will be compensated in a future agreement if inflation by the end of each year has gone up by more than forecast (1.9% of the increases in the current agreement reflect the fact that inflation rose more than forecast over the period 1999-2000). This guarantee clause may well apply again as in March 2000 prices were increasing by 3.9%, almost double the forecast rate of 2.0% for the end of the year.

As a framework agreement the deal allows negotiators at lower levels to agree better terms.