西班牙脱困方案剑指用工制度或触怒工会

    根据西班牙现行体系，劳动合同的根据是全国性或者行业性的（如汽车业）谈判。企业别无选择，即便无力承担，也只能执行这些合同规定的薪资上调幅度。决定薪资上调幅度的是西班牙消费者价格指数，而该指数通常比欧洲的消费者价格指数增长得更快，这意味着西班牙的薪资定位脱离了市场。

    德金多斯称，政府打算从事实上终结这一体系。将来，虽然劳动合同仍采取全国性谈判的机制，但公司可自行决定是否接受这些条款，还是与雇员协商全新的薪资协议，甚至还可以包含在公司状况不佳时实施薪资冻结或减薪的条款。

    这一改变对于掌握核心谈判机制、势力强大的诸多西班牙工会将构成沉重打击。“当前的机制存在问题，因为它丧失了灵活性，这正是需要改变的地方，”德•金多斯说。“我们要做的是给予企业更大的空间和灵活性。”

    如果这还不足以激怒工会的话，第二项改革提议绝对让他们火冒三丈。它将终结西班牙事实上的双重就业体系。其中一个阶层被称为永久雇员，他们任职已超过3年，如被解雇将获得两年半的薪水作为遣散费。这样高昂的费用会让任何公司都不敢轻易做出解雇的决定。

    另一个阶层是临时工，他们占劳动人口的1/3左右，如被解雇，遣散费最多为每工作一年补偿10天的薪水。结果不可避免地就出现了这样的情况：第三年底，他们往往都会被解雇，因为如果他们再多工作一天，就有权获得10倍的遣散费。很多经济学家认为，正是这种双阶层就业体系造成了西班牙极高的失业率。

    解决方案是政府将批准一项新的法案，降低永久雇员享有的遣散费补偿。目的是消除两个阶层间的巨大壁垒，让企业更有动力留住员工，为员工提供培训和其他福利（目前这些福利都与临时工无缘）。

    但官员们表示，永久雇员目前享有的地位是上世纪中叶弗朗哥时代（Franco）遗留下来的主要福祉之一，而且工会也会为保存现有体系而斗争到底。

    “变革将带来巨大变化，为西班牙体系注入急需的灵活性，”马德里IESE商学院（IESE Business School）经济学教授哈维•迪阿兹吉曼尼兹称。“现有体系太僵化，（劳动成本）太高。”

    由于西班牙使用欧元，它无法再像过去那样时不时地进行本币贬值，以保持对其他欧洲国家的竞争力。因此，唯一的真正出路是允许地区间存在薪资差异，从而降低国内劳工成本，这就好比美国南卡罗来纳州的汽车工人的薪酬要比底特律参加工会的工人少得多。

    “工会肯定会特别恼火，因为这削弱了它们的势力根基，而且工会角色的重要性也将减弱，”迪阿兹吉曼尼兹说。

    译者：zdm

    Under Spain's current system, labor contracts are either negotiated on a national basis or by sector such as the automobile industry. A firm has no choice but to pay the wage increases mandated by those contracts, even if it can't afford to. The wage rises are determine by the Spanish consumer price index, which often rises faster than Europe's CPI, meaning Spanish labor is priced out of the market.

    De Guindos says the government plans to effectively end this system. Instead, while contracts will continue to be negotiated nationally, a firm will be free to decide whether to accept the terms or negotiate with its staff an entirely new wage agreement that might even include a pay freeze or cuts if the company is suffering.

    The change will be a major blow to Spain's powerful trade unions, which control the central negotiation mechanism. "The current system is wrong because you are losing flexibility and that's something that will be modified," de Guindos says. "What we are going to do is give much more leeway and flexibility at the corporate level."

    If that was not enough to anger the unions, the second proposed reform will certainly enrage them. It will end what is essentially a two-caste system of employees in Spain. One group of employees, who are dubbed permanent and have been employed longer than three years, are entitled to up to two and a half years salary as severance if they are let go. So it is prohibitively expensive for any company to fire them.

    The other group, which is known as temporary workers and makes up about one-third of the workforce, gets a maximum 10 days a year severance when fired. The inevitable result is at the end of their third year, these workers are usually let go because if they work one day longer they will be entitled to 10 times the severance payments. It is this system of dual caste employees that many economists believe is responsible for Spain's very high unemployment.

    The solution will be that the government will pass a new law lowering the amount of severance the permanent workers are entitled to. The idea is to end the huge wall between the two groups and provide more incentive for companies to keep employees on the job, giving them training and other benefits now denied to temporary workers.

    But the status of permanent workers is one of the key legacies of the Franco era and the trade unions will likely fight determinedly to preserve the current system, officials say.

    "It will really make a huge difference and bring in much needed flexibility into the Spanish system," says Javier Diaz-Gimenez, a professor of economics at the IESE Business School in Madrid. "The current system is incredibly rigid and expensive."

    Because Spain uses the euro, it can no longer try to remain competitive with other European countries by devaluing its currency as it did regularly in the past. So its only real alternative will be to devalue labor costs internally by allowing regions to have different wage rates, in much the same way that auto workers in South Carolina get paid much less than unionized workers in Detroit.

    "The trade unions are going to be extremely upset because this undermines their power base and their role will be diminished," Diaz-Gimenez said.