Mallorca sick leave: MPs reject higher worker costs

Workers on Mallorca should not have to pay more when they take sick leave: the Balearic parliament voted unanimously in Palma, Mallorca, on Tuesday, 13 October, to ask Spain’s Congress of Deputies not to shift more of the cost onto them. The vote came during a debate on a non-binding motion from the Balearic Socialist Party (PSIB) about protecting workers’ pay and benefits while they are off sick.

Other parts of the motion split the chamber. Every party except Vox backed a call for employers and unions to agree any changes to the financial terms of sick leave, and for existing collective agreements on who pays to be respected. The parliament noted that absences of up to three days account for 40 per cent of sick leave due to common illnesses.

Socialist MP Llorenç Pou accused conservative People’s Party (PP) leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo of wanting companies to stop paying for those short absences where agreements currently require it. Pou said sick workers would lose pay. PP MP Jordi López countered that no one had lost a right and said Feijóo wanted to tackle unjustified absence from work.

The parliament also called on the Balearic government to put existing studies of hotel workloads into practice urgently. It wants the Balearic Islands’ Labour Observatory to keep tracking unjustified absences. But PP and Vox votes defeated calls for Feijóo to correct his remarks about absence from work and for the government to sharply cut patients’ waiting times.

Topics: Jobs & labour · Politics · Palma

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com