Junts "leaves the same as it came in" from the meeting with Yolanda Díaz and maintains its vote against reducing working hours.

Junts "leaves the same as it entered" the meeting with Yolanda Díaz. As part of the round of contacts that Second Vice President and Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz is holding with all parliamentary parties in the Congress of Deputies—except VOX—to gather support for reducing the working day to 37.5 hours per week without a pay cut, today was Junts per Catalunya's turn. After Junts, PP, and VOX registered three amendments to the entire bill on reducing the working day a few days ago, Díaz met this Thursday at 9:30 a.m. with Carles Puigdemont's party to negotiate the measure, reports Juan Casillas.

The initial goal is for the reduction in working hours to be brought to the extraordinary plenary session on July 22 , although this has not yet been finalized, as efforts are now focused on securing the necessary support, according to government sources compiled by Servimedia.

The first reports to emerge after Díaz's meeting with Puigdemont's party indicate that the latter remain opposed to reducing working hours and that the law ignores the fact that "Catalonia's reality is different from the rest of Spain," alluding to the minister's intention to introduce a new time record.

During the meeting, Junts warned Díaz that it "remains at odds" with the reduction of working hours and maintains its vote against them. The Minister of Labor's flagship project currently lacks a majority in Parliament. However, the second vice president offers a contradictory message to Junts, stating that "it was a very positive meeting," while remaining optimistic that the reform will be successful.

The Catalan party had already met with Díaz just over a week ago to discuss the issue. However, Puigdemont's party followed through on its threats and presented a comprehensive amendment to Díaz's reduced working hours bill in Congress. Junts froze the Minister of Labor's biggest initiative for this term because it lacked the unanimous support of social dialogue and was detrimental to SMEs, whose viability could be "seriously harmed," as this newspaper reported.

In the text justifying the amendment, the Catalan parliamentary group asked the Executive to open a "real and rigorous dialogue" process, emphasizing the importance of collective bargaining , as well as assessing all the implications of the reform and, if necessary, presenting a new proposal.

This isn't the only meeting the Vice President and Second Minister of Labor will hold today. According to Díaz's agenda, she will meet with Sumar at 1:30 p.m. and with the Socialist Party at 2:00 p.m. to address the issue.