CCOO and UGT propose a May Day as a dam against Trump's policies.

MadridDonald Trump's arrival at the White House will not go unnoticed this May Day, or at least not among the majority unions, CCOO and UGT, which are proposing next week's mobilizations as a dam against the policies of the US president. "It should be a May Day marked by the clamor for shorter working hours, but it will be a clamor for democracy with the arrival of Donald Trump," said CCOO leader Unai Sordo at a press conference this Monday, during the presentation of the two unions' manifesto for International Workers' Day 2025: "Win the Future."

"[Donald] Trump has come to turn the world upside down. [...] They have come so that rights and freedoms stop being for everyone and are only for a minority," reiterated the general secretary of UGT, Pepe Álvarez (UGT), who went even further: "C LGTBI people, the rights of migrants, social rights to health and education. For all these reasons, the union leader believes that next week's demonstrations will be "deeply ideological" and trusts that they will be a "before and after in the resurgence of the union movement, to say that we are here and that we will not let anything of what we have achieved slip away."

Both unions welcome the Spanish government's response to Donald Trump's decisions, including the arbitrary deployment of tariffs, and affirm that it is "on the right path," but they focus on Europe: "Spain cannot do this alone. It must lead a [European] narrative on how to address European Union policies," said Unai Sordo.

CCOO and UGT took the opportunity to highlight the trip of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to China, as a step forward to strengthen other markets. The Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, also returned: "We must rebalance the relationship, which is currently very negative for Europe with China. I think everyone understands this, and it is not just a Spanish approach, it is a European one," Cuerpo argued in an interview on Onda Cero this Monday. "It is, perhaps, the May Day with the most global connotations in more than 100 years of history," concluded the UGT leader.

Pending reduction in working hours

Beyond the international arena, the CCOO and UGT remain focused on reducing the weekly work week to 37.5 hours. "The law," Álvarez lamented. The Ministry of Labor and unions agreed last December that the reduction in working hours would come into effect in 2025..

The secretary general of UGT is confident that if PSOE and Sumar are delaying this decision, it's because they want to secure the necessary votes in the Spanish lower house once the law is passed. For now, parties like Junts have already said they don't like the current text, and business organizations have been trying for some time to get them to vote against it.

In any case, neither organization has avoided pressuring the executive: "We must give way to the legislative process. It makes no sense for it to remain paralyzed," Álvarez asserted. Regarding whether this delay in the schedule could open the door to the end of the legislative period, which a priori ends in 2027, and the measure not being implemented, both unions have ruled it out: "We neither renounce, nor will we renounce it," Álvarez said, while Sordo warned of "mobilizations" in the streets if it is imposed. For both organizations, clarity and speed in the process are key to unblocking the collective agreements currently being negotiated, as well as a new Employment and Collective Bargaining Agreement (AENC) with the employers' association, which they plan to address before the end of the year.