ELA proposes a progressive complementary fund for people with Temporary Employment Regulation (ERTE), guaranteeing 100% of all salaries of less than 1,200 Euros

Jun 04, 2020
ELA is demanding that the Basque Government must commit itself and take steps to maintain employment, in order to avoid the destruction of thousands of companies and jobs in the short term. The fund proposed by ELA will require the implication of the employers’ association, Confebask.

Over the past month and a half, there have been many more TERs due to production reasons than there have been due to Force Majeure. In the current context, when the health crisis has now turned into an economic crisis, the creation of a fund to complement the ordinary TER payments would help to maintain thousands of jobs in the Basque Country.

On this subject, as ELA has included in its proposals, employment policies are needed and to do this an agreement amongst all the trade unions, the employers’ associations and the Basque Government is essential. In order for this agreement to be effective to both maintain the workers’ employment and their living conditions, we need to start this fund up immediately; we cannot wait for political elections. It is not going to be easy to recover the jobs that we lose today later on.

For ELA, a fund must be created to start up this agreement revolving around three elements:

  • Complementing the salaries of personnel included in the TERs, particularly those with the lowest salaries. For ELA, salaries below 1,200 Euros should be supplemented up to 100%; those below 1,500 Euros up to 90% and those above this figure, up to 80%, with a maximum contribution of 400 Euros. In the same proportion, we demand that during the TER, the contributions to be paid by the companies must be completed.
  • Guaranteeing that the companies maintain their employment to receive help with the contributions, particularly in the case of temporary work.
  • For the financing of this fund a surcharge is established on the Corporations Tax. That is to say, company feasibility and maintenance of employment is agreed through business profits.

ELA considers that the last point is the key to the agreement, since the agreement cannot be understood without the involvement of the employers’ associations.

This proposal must be a first step towards not destroying employment. Along with this, we need an in depth public strategy to change the production model. We need an economic system that puts life at the centre, that responds to people’s needs and to do this, it is essential to transform the companies, rather than destroying jobs. These steps must be accompanied by a change in the aid for unemployed people to prevent situations of poverty and to ensure that nobody gets left along the wayside.

This is the moment for taking decisions. We are asking all the political parties for courage to start up conversations with all the agents to be able to talk about this type of specific proposals.