CAMBIOS 97 ¿Qué sobra? - ESTRATEGIAS PRIMARIAS

ESTRATEGIAS PRIMARIAS

IX. CAMBIOS 97 ¿Qué sobra?

profesionales to the grupos profesionales. Much more than a semantic

variation.

As we have already said, in the Spanish regulatory system, the Italian concept of “employee’s tasks” does not have a similar linguistic expression: in that legal system we refer to the wide category of “work conditions”.

More in particular, the definition of the work performance taken on by the employee, is based on a system of professional organization, which finds in collective bargaining its source of reference.

The ultimate sense of the importance attributed in Spain to the classification system lies in concrete in the fact that it is the fundamental “mechanism” to define the content of the work performance requested by the employer.

On the other hand, the centrality of collective bargaining (also) when it comes to classification and professional organization is “coherent” with the need to have a taxonomic system respondent as much as possible to the specifities typical of the different work organization models and characterizing single sectors and single enterprises.

The consequence of this is that the methodology and the criteria – with reference to which professional classification has developed over time – have significantly changed during recent years. For example, as a consequence of the change caused by technological-informative development and by work professional and organizational transformations.

More in detail, article 22 of the Estatuto de los trabajadores, indexed “Sistema de clasificación profesional”, considers the fundamental principle as a consequence of which law assigns to

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collective bargaining (or, in its absence, to an agreement between employer and employee representatives) the determination of the employees’ professional classification system, through professional groups.

What clearly emerges therefore is the centrality of the concept of “professional group”, defined by article 22, paragraph 2, E.T., as a unitary grouping of «aptitudes profesionales, titulaciones y contenido

general de la prestación», which can include «distintas tareas, funciones, especialidades profesionales o responsabilidades asignadas al trabajador».

In addition, the law specifies – in what in reality seems a statement of principle – that, in the definition of these professional groups, it is necessary to follow criteria and systems oriented towards the exclusion of any form of direct or indirect discrimination between men and women280.

Hence, the Spanish labor law system attributes a particular importance to the concept of “professional group” in the ambit of a system of classification that places collective bargaining in a privileged position.

As highlighted by an authoritative scholar, exactly the latter “traces” a «diseño de la clasificación profesional en la empresa o en el

sector»281, which groups together a series of duties that make up the employees’ work performance and that find in the concept of “professional group” their conceptual reference.

280_{Article 22, paragraph 3, Estatuto de los trabajadores.}

281_{J. C}_RUZ_V_ILLALÓN_{, Compendio de derecho del trabajo, cit., 208. The author adds:}

«Esta agrupación se realiza de forma unitaria, con carácter general y abstracto, con vistas a elaborar un listado de grupos profesionales, atribuyendo una denominación a cada uno de ellos y la descripción del correspondiente contenido de cada una de las unidades en las que se descompone dicha clasificación profesional».

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The importance of the disposition here recalled and of the concept of professional group here presented can be fully appreciated only if considered as the result of a recent reform which has radically “re- orientated” Spanish labor law (but not only) on the subjects of professional organization and functional mobility.

On this point legislation has undergone changes of extraordinary importance. Changes addressed towards the versatility and the “adjustability” of the classificatory systems in force in the various enterprises to the productive and organizational changes determined by the quick mutability of the market trends.

In a first moment, the employees’ professional classification was centered on the concept of “professional category”, considered as

«estructura profesional que coincide con el modo de producción taylorista o fordista»282_.

It was obviously a taxonomic model particularly rigid and parceled, typical of a system characterized by a high work division with a big number of categories, each of which carefully describing the correspondent tasks (in the light of objective parameters and criteria).

However, this taxonomic-professional system was in time gradually “surpassed” as a consequence of the development and diffusion of new technologies and new models of production organization (and therefore, of work), which required quick and efficacious answers to the changes imposed by the market.

The “categorias profesionales” give way to the “grupos

profesionales” in the perspective of a substantial reduction of the internal

articulations of the professional classification system and especially of a more flexible definition of the content, the object of each group.

282_{Ivi, 209.}

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As stressed by an authoritative Spanish labor law scholar: «con el

paso al modelo de los grupos se pretende emplear una metodología diversa en la definición de los contenidos de cada uno de los grupos, de modo que las definiciones correspondientes apenas tengan en consideración la enumeración de tareas y atiendan prevalentemente a las capacidades y méritos necesarios para la ejecución de los trabajos integrados en ese grupo»283.

As we can understand from the words just quoted, the change is deep and radical because it refers to the conceptual sphere of professional classification, in order to permit the employer to have greater flexibility in the use of human resources.

The Spanish 2012 labor market reform (Law 6 July 2012, n. 3 e Royal Decree-Law 13 July 2012, n. 20) has in fact deeply conditioned the institutes through which flexibility is usually inserted in the work relationship, that is the so-called internal or functional flexibility.

It is through it that work conditions are “adapted” to the needs imposed by the market on the enterprises.

«El elevado número de variaciones que pueden afectar el desarrollo de la relación laboral determina el establecimiento de un régimen jurídico flexible que permita la adaptación de las condiciones de trabajo inicialmente pactadas, bien lo sean pactadas individual como colectivamente, en beneficio tanto de los intereses empresariales como del mantenimiento del empleo»284.

It is useful to clarify also here that at the basis of the Spanish reform to the internal flexibility of the work relationship, there is a common spirit with the reforms introduced in other European systems. According to this spirit, «la rigidez y la falta de adaptación es causa de

283_Ibidem. 284_{Ivi, 331.}

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que las empresas opten (casi como único recurso) al despido, lo cual se rechaza por irrazonable»285.

In any case, the novelties introduced in Spain by the 2012 reform are certainly various and heterogeneous: let’s think, for example, of the changes which touched the discipline of contract suspension, the reduction of the work day for economic reasons and the employee’s geographic mobility.

In the present research we focus on the regulatory development of the so-called movilidad funcional, which has caused a “rupture” with the regulatory schemes of the past, which were based on the concept of “professional category” and which has been removed from the system and replaced by the one of “professional group”.

What could prima facie seem as a mainly (if not an exclusively) semantic change, reflects instead – as we have said – a substantial redefinition of the employees’ professional classification system, with a consequent readjustment of the principles inspiring the discipline itself.

The foundation of the conceptual change is to be found in the purpose followed by the legislator and expressly declared in the text of the law: «el sistema de clasificación profesional pasa a tener como única

referencia el grupo profesional con el objetivo de sortear la rigidez de la noción de categoría profesional y hacer de la movilidad funcional ordinaria un mecanismo de adaptación más viable y eficaz»286.

The declared objective of the legislator is therefore to overcome the rigidity which connaturalizes the concept of categoría profesional, valorizing the tool of functional mobility, as virtuous mechanism of

285_{A.V. S}_EMPERE_N_AVARRO_–_R._M_ARTÍN_J_IMÉNEZ_{, Claves de la Reforma Laboral de}

2012, Pamplona, 2012, 211.

286_{Law 6 July 2012, n. 3, with «medidas urgentes para la reforma del mercado}

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greater utility to adapt the work performance to the needs proper of the economic efficiency of an enterprise.

Thus, the reform has concerned article 22 of the Estatuto de los

trabajadores (“Sistema de clasificación profesional”) with the aim of

facilitating and making more flexible the exercise of internal mobility from the functional (article 39 E.T.) and geographical (article 40 E.T.)287 point of view.

The concept of professional group assumes the form of a limit because as we mentioned above, once the employee has been inserted in a certain professional group, he/she will be able to be used in all or only in some of the tasks correspondent to the group of reference288.

Furthermore, it is worth specifying that the Spanish labor law system considers also the so-called “functional versatility”, establishing in the last part of article 22.4 E.T.: «Cuando se acuerde la polivalencia

funcional o la realización de funciones propias de más de un grupo, la

287_{M.V. B}_ALLESTRERO_{, Declinazioni di flexicurity. La riforma italiana e la deriva}

spagnola, in Lav. dir., 2012, 3-4, 441-464.

288_{More in detail, it is worth clarifying that, once the concrete attitude of the} professional classification system has been defined through collective bargaining, the personal employment contract simply assigns to the employee a certain professional group, relying on collective bargaining for what concerns the concrete identification of the object of the work performance (see article 22.4 E.T.). In any case it is necessary to clarify that the content of the work performance can be determined by an agreement between the parties different from the dispositions of of collective bargaining, according to article 22.4 E.T.: «Por acuerdo entre el trabajador y el empresario se

asignará al trabajador un grupo profesional y se establecerá como contenido de la prestación laboral objeto del contrato de trabajo la realización de todas las funciones correspondientes al grupo profesional asignado o solamente de alguna de ellas».

Hence, as efficaciously stressed by an authoritative scholar: «puede afirmarse que el

Estatuto de los Trabajadores convierte en totalmente disponible el sistema de clasificación profesional elaborado por la negociación colectiva en lo que se refiere a la delimitación de la prestación debida, por cuanto no establece límites ni condicionantes a lo que se pueda pactar en contrato». J. CRUZ VILLALÓN, Compendio

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equiparación se realizará en virtud de las funciones que se desempeñen durante mayor tiempo».

To this regard, it does not seem possible to deny a certain perplexity about this last criterion of prevalence, because it seems to present critical aspects in its practical application. In fact, it is easy to imagine how the assessment of the tasks performed in concrete can represent a reason of controversy between the parties.

The Spanish legislator expressly considers therefore the possibility to assign the employee to tasks of two or more professional groups: with reference to this, essential is the role of the individual agreement between the parties (the so-called “pacto de polivalencia”).

Wanting to sum up the sense of the regulatory development of the complex subject of professional classification in the Spanish legal system, we can say that «la movilidad funcional se amplía rompiendo

con esquemas pretéritos basados en la categoría profesional, la cual se sustituye forzosamente por la noción de grupo profesional»289.

7. Two core regulations in comparison: the article 2103 c.c. in

In document Como Aprender Idiomas Con PNL (página 112-142)