Díaz reaffirms to unions that the time-tracking decree will go through

Legal note: This article is informational and does not constitute legal advice. The digital time-tracking Royal Decree is still in process and has not yet been published in Spain’s official gazette (BOE).

”We are going to get it done”

Yolanda Díaz rarely leaves room for interpretation when she talks about time tracking, and on 18 June she did it again. She said it in Madrid, during the European union mobilisation called by the European Trade Union Confederation together with CCOO and UGT: “Many are against it, but we are going to get it done.” And just before, almost in answer to those asking her to slow down: “Sometimes I’m told we did too much, that we should sit still. No, we’ve barely started. We want time tracking!”.

The line lands at an awkward moment for the decree. The deadline the minister herself had set —approval before 21 June— falls this week, and the text has not gone through the Council of Ministers. Díaz reaffirming herself at a union event, as the deadline runs out, says more about political pressure than about the real timeline.

The argument the Labour Ministry keeps repeating

Behind the insistence sits a figure Díaz waves like a flag: 2.5 million overtime hours worked every week in Spain without pay. With no reliable record, those hours show up nowhere, so they are neither paid nor declared for social security. For the Labour Ministry, that is the problem the decree solves, not the administrative paperwork employer associations complain about.

It is the same ammunition union leaders used when they pressured the Government days earlier. The difference is who fires it now: the minister who holds the power to sign the rule.

Why time tracking goes by decree, not by law

The origin of all this explains the urgency. The initial plan was to cut the legal working week to 37.5 hours through a law, and that law fell in Congress in September when PP, Vox and Junts passed the wholesale amendments. Díaz recalled it at the rally without mincing words: “the three right-wing parties brought this law down.”

Time tracking is what is left standing. Processed as a Royal Decree, the Government can approve it without going through the chamber, where it lacks the votes. That is why Díaz appeals to street mobilisation —“if the working class mobilises, they won’t win”— rather than to parliamentary negotiation: it is a rule the executive can pass on its own, and that is what keeps it alive despite the setbacks.

The objection that still weighs

The obstacle has not vanished however much Díaz repeats that she won’t give up. In March, the Council of State issued an unfavourable opinion on the draft: it questioned the economic-impact assessment, warned that certain obligations would fit better in a law than in a regulation, and flagged gaps in worker data protection. The opinion is not binding —the Government can approve the decree anyway— but it gives cover to anyone who wants to delay it.

Even so, the Labour Ministry maintains the process is on track. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Joaquín Pérez Rey reiterated that the rule will be approved in the coming months, even before summer. Díaz’s 18 June remarks confirm the ministry’s political will, but they add no date to the BOE, which still does not exist.

What changes for an SME

Little, and that is what matters. The political noise about dates does not change the substance: the direction has been set for two years, and the Supreme Court is already striking down manual and paper records case after case, decree or no decree. What is in doubt is the exact day the obligation kicks in, not its content, which has been known since the draft started circulating.

For a company still clocking in on paper, waiting for the BOE to act is the worst strategy: a clock-in history cannot be built backwards, and the Inspectorate can request data from previous months. Getting ahead costs little —solutions like Cleverfy cover every requirement in the draft from €1.50 per employee per month (see pricing)— and it avoids a rushed migration the day every company looks for a provider at once.

---

Would you rather not depend on what the BOE says? With Cleverfy you digitise time tracking in ten minutes and start building history today. Try it free for 14 days →

---

Sources: Europa Press.

Photo: Yolanda Díaz, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labour. Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2024, CC BY 2.0. Image cropped.