Will the seven-and-a-half-hour workday make us pay more to restaurants?

BarcelonaThis is the topic that is boiling over in the conversations about work between chefs and food retailers: how will the catering industry be able to deal with the reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours a week? The Cabinet approved the text of the draft law on February 4, but the road to its implementation will be long, despite the fact that theory says that it must be done before December 31, 2025 and without affecting the workers' wages. For catering companies in particular, the reduction could be one more blow than they have been suffering in recent years, because the profession of serving is not linked to the exact control of the working day. Many chefs who own restaurants recognize that cooking and serving a dish involves more than seven and a half hours in a day. If the law were to go ahead, then new formulas would have to be found that would have an impact on society. Which ones? The increase in the final ticket for a meal; adapt to new, shorter hours or probably with more holidays if they do not want to hire more staff, or simply "close down completely", as the president of the Barcelona bakers' guild, Jaume Bertran, drastically states. And if not, there is another way, which is the re-education of society, which would mean that they would eat lunch and dinner earlier and that football would be broadcast in the afternoon, among other pillars of the reform.

There are all kinds of opinions among chefs. For fine dining, with a large staff, almost as many people as diners they serve, the reform of the working day should not cause too many changes. "We are prepared," says Javier Torres, from the restaurant Hermanos Torres, with three Michelin stars. "We have staff who can work two shifts, midday and night, and some come at midday and in the evening, but at night they only set up tables and then they leave," explains Javier, who adds that, however, "the job takes time." And if not, an example: a customer arrives two hours later than the time they had reserved the table because they have found a traffic jam, because they have missed a flight or for whatever reason: they have been waiting for them for two hours, but they will not make them give up early so as not to serve them. "We are a service, we are dedicated to making those who come to our restaurant happy, so there must be coherence between what we want to be and what we do," says the chef, who admits that he is concerned about the law especially for small businesses, like the bar his parents owned.

At the Marcel Santaló bar on Calle Santaló in Barcelona, ​​Salva Vendrell explains the structure they have in order to understand his point of view: they have eight workers, they are open from Monday to Sunday (they close on Sunday afternoon) from early in the morning until eleven at night. The fact that they have to reduce the daily working day by two and a half hours will mean that they will have to hire more staff and, consequently, says the owner, this will have "an impact on the final prices that the consumer will pay." For Vendrell, reducing the working days of the workers by 100 hours a year cannot be done if it is not linked to any other structural change. "The hospitality industry has suffered a decrease in the profit margin, reaching eight or ten percent, which is what it is giving now; before it was higher." Decreasing this profit cannot be done, according to Vendrell, so the new law will in all probability imply an increase in the final prices that the consumer will pay. "We can't lower our profits any further, because they're already way below what they were before," he says. Meanwhile, on Calle Vallespir in Barcelona's Sants district, Toni Falgueras, from Bodega de Gelida, says that one way they could cope with the reduction in working hours without having to hire more staff or work overtime or increase product prices is by having more holidays per week, that is, closing the establishment for more days than it is currently closed.

Pernicious law

For his part, the president of the Butchers and Charcuterie Guild, Pròsper Puig, describes the draft law as "pernicious." And it is because "it is poorly thought out, because what should be done is to distribute wealth and not aggravate poverty." In other words: "If a worker wants to work more hours because he wants to earn more, he will not be able to do so because we will have a tax that cannot be." By their own agreement, the union members have approved that they work thirty-nine hours a week; now they are negotiating again, but this negotiation coincides in time with the new law of the Spanish government. For all this, Puig affirms that, if the law is approved, it will have an impact on the final prices that the consumer will pay. "All this remains to be seen if it will be approved, because we will put pressure on it so that it does not go ahead." In fact, for the president of the Guild, what should be done is a deep debate on the labor system, such as the one that a worker pays, as well as clarifying the expense that sick leave and absenteeism represent for the government. He says that this is the major labor issue to be addressed.

Finally, the president of the Gremio de Forners, Jaume Bertran, says that they are now "resigned to everything." "Today I felt that civil servants could work four days and have thirty-five hour work days. But how can a hotel, which is open twenty-four hours, do it?" Bertran muses, adding that "the baker's job requires hours, and if they can't do them, the only thing left is to close." And there would still be another way. A law of this type could be linked to a structural reform of society's habits. It would be the opportunity to eat and dine earlier than is currently done, and also for leisure activities, such as football, to be broadcast in the afternoon. If the theatre managed to change the performances from ten at night to seven or eight in the evening, and perhaps now nobody remembers that it used to be done differently, perhaps now is the time for the restoration (obliged by law) to educate society to eat lunch and dinner at other times, at twelve/one in the afternoon and at seven/eight in the evening. Perhaps in this way the restoration might not have as many problems as it would have with training staff, but all this is science fiction because the first thing is to accept that the profession needs to be understood and studied with its own criteria.

The Barcelona Restaurant Association has declined to comment on the draft law.