Yesterday, the Senate passed the Draft Law on Urgent Measures for the Reduction of Temporary Periods in Public Employment, which means that the rule has its final approval and thus ends its proceedings in the Chambers, having also achieved its approval in the Congress of Deputies on 2 December.
The law originates from the Royal Decree-Law 14/2021, of July 6, approved by the Council of Ministers, text that was validated at the Congress of Deputies on July 21, the date from which it has been processed in the Chambers as a Bill Project by the urgency procedure.
The rule, in addition to having been enriched by dialogue in the Chambers between the different political groups, has been negotiated with representatives of public sector workers and also with the different levels of government. In this way, the original text comes from an agreement endorsed by the General Negotiating Bureau with the trade unions CC OO, UGT and CSIF, as well as from the debate within the Sectoral Conference of the Public Administration and the meetings of the Coordinating Committee on Public Employment, in which both the Autonomous Communities and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Femp participate.
The aim of the law is to reduce the temporality of all administrations below 8%, a ratio that today is fulfilled by the General Government of the State, but not by other territorial areas. This is, in turn, a commitment that the government made to the European Union through the reforms contained in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and also involves complying with the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Supreme Court.
Under this rule, public administrations must, before 1 June 2022, offer temporary workers' places that are currently employed. Selective processes must be completed by 31 December 2024. A competitive process will give access to these places. The tender phase will weigh 40% and experience will be the determining element in the valuation. The exercises of the opposition phase may be regarded as non-eliminating. At the same time, the various administrations will be able to adapt the agenda and the type of tests for the stabilisation of employment, as they consider most appropriate for each area.
Places which would have been temporarily uninterrupted before 1 January 2016 shall be convened by the competition system on an exceptional basis. This means that the Administration ' s structural posts which have been occupied for at least five years in an interim manner, as well as those occupied by interim persons who have been employed in the Administration for more than five years, will be convened through this extraordinary process for stabilization.
Interim staff who do not go beyond this selective process shall be entitled to compensation of 20 days per year worked up to a maximum of 12 months. These persons will also be incorporated into a specific job exchange.
The application of the rule will reach all levels of government, all public enterprises, public bodies, foundations and public sector consortia, so the process of regularisation will be carried out in all these areas, without prejudice to its compliance with its specific rules.
In the same way, both civil servants and employees, provided that they meet the required conditions, will benefit from the stabilisation provided by law.
The government’s push for this rule to reduce temporality in public administrations is another example of its commitment to the public, both to the quality of employment of people working in this environment, and to the excellence of the welfare state services provided to citizens.