How the ERC shift has annulled the star measure of the Science Law
It was, for scientific associations, star measure. The one who saved the law. Until, around nine o'clock on Tuesday night, the 12 ERC senators pressed the "yes" button when Ander Gil, president of the Upper House, gave way to the vote on amendment 76. They thus joined the PP, promoter of the modification, Vox, the PNV, UPN and his government partner in the Generalitat, Junts per Catalunya, to win the vote from the Government and the rest of the usual partners. Goodbye, tenth additional provision of the new Science Law. Goodbye, mandatory indefinite hiring for researchers and technical and management staff with programs financed by competitive European funds.
The Catalan Republicans went from voting in favor of including this measure in the law in Congress to voting against the exact same text in the Senate just three weeks apart. The movement took many by surprise after a few days of uncertainty: first it was leaked that the ERC was thinking about changing its position, but Senator Josep Maria Reniu's intervention in the debate led many to think that he would not do so, although it was not explicit. Once the movement was completed, criticism of the Republicans rained down from various associations of scientists and those who are usually their partners in the majority that usually supports the Government. What has happened to this change of position that has led the Catalan Republicans to vote with the PP and Vox? They ask.
Those who are disappointed with the approved amendment speak of the PP's taste for a "precarious" model, the Ministry of Science dixit, or that the ERC "has yielded" to pressure from Junts, in turn influenced by the university rectors – who sent a letter asking the centers to repeal the amendment– and the investigating employers, both from public and private centers, the latter with special force in Catalonia, where both parties govern.
ERC denies this and assures that "surely the assessment [de la enmienda en el Congreso] was not successful" and that what he has done in the Senate is to amend that vote, and explains that it is a matter of seeking "basal and stable" funding for the science system that the wording of the law does not guarantee [aunque recoge entre sus postulados alcanzar una inversión pública del 1,25% del PIB, la media europea]. They add that a good financing of the system will revert in guaranteeing an improvement of the labor rights of researchers as, they assure, they are doing with the law of own science that is negotiated in the Parliament.
According to Senator Josep Maria Reniu, what the Government was trying to do in the Science Law was "a contractual make-up of the labor reform in a system, the science system, that what it needs is financing", and that the best destination for The funds is to finance the centers so that they carry out projects.
This is basically the big discrepancy. Should the funds be used to finance projects or to improve the situation of workers in the science system, if it is necessary to choose between one and the other? The basic difference between the indefinite contracts that the law imposed and the temporary ones that had been common – and will continue, after yesterday's amendment – are eight days of annual salary in compensation for dismissal. With a temporary contract, they are 12 days per year worked. With an indefinite one, 20. CCOO ensures that there is between eight hundred and one thousand euros of difference per researcher between one and the other. "It is hard to believe that an increase of less than 1,000 euros per year in compensation for dismissal in projects, typically of more than 500,000 euros, supposes a loss for any institution," they maintain.
Junts, which co-governs in Catalonia with ERC, assured during the debate on the amendment that the indefinite contract would cost the Government 1,500 million euros. "The accounts do not come out," says Elisa Fernández, from CCOO. "Spain has obtained a total of 5,600 million euros from competitive European funds in six years. In the best of cases, the Generalitat will talk about that period," she explains, and even so, she doubts it.
If the law comes out as it is now, with the modification approved on Tuesday, parliamentary sources estimate that indefinite contracts will reach 30% of researchers (and technical and management staff), while if it had remained in the original wording 70% would be covered by these better working conditions.
Another direct consequence of yesterday's vote is that the entry into force of the law (which was approved while waiting for Congress to ratify or undo the change approved in the Senate) is delayed until probably September, which will leave without compensation for termination of the contract for pre and postdoctoral staff who remain unemployed while it is approved.
The PP, author of the amendment, justifies it to "equate hiring, avoiding discrimination based on their origin, provided that the funds are European." Translated: given that the non-competitive European funds for research (those that come from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan) are associated with temporary contracts (due to their exceptional nature, these funds last for a certain time and then will disappear) they do not have sense that other European funds are associated with indefinite contracts and there are laboratory colleagues doing the same with different contracts depending on where the money comes from.
It has its ironic point that it is exactly the same argument used by the Ministry of Science to regret that this measure has been overthrown, although in the case of the department directed by Diana Morant it makes the comparison between European and national funds, where they will have to sign indefinite contracts.
It so happens that the PP admitted that the amendment is not their initiative. "It is not even ours," he explained in the debate of Juan José Sanz Vitorio, popular spokesman. “It is a request that the entire network of Severo Ochoa and María de Maeztu centers of excellence have sent us. The Crue has been added. And I wonder, are all the centers of excellence in this country wrong? Are all universities wrong?” he wondered.
This intervention by Vitorio gave rise to what many consider to be really behind the change in ERC's position: employer pressure to save money on compensation. "They give in to pressure from the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (Crue), which has positioned itself from the beginning of the negotiation against the improvement of working conditions in the sector," they say from CCOO. "The joint pressure of SOMMa [la alianza de los centros de élite investigadora] and the CRUE [los rectores de Universidades] has made a dent in ERC", lamented the deputy Javier Sánchez Serna, from UP, the party that promoted this measure to be included in the law.
SOMMa, chaired by the researcher María Blasco, yesterday distanced itself from these alleged pressures. "The presidency of SOMMa clarifies that the alliance has not promoted any specific amendment to the Science Law project approved by the Senate," the institution explained this Wednesday after the commotion caused the previous day. "The reform of the Law of Science includes important advances and includes historical demands of the sector. One of these advances establishes the indefinite nature of labor relations in the field of R&D&I, which will limit job insecurity, which It's also good for science."
Blasco, who in addition to SOMMa also directs the National Cancer Research Center, also posted on Twitter that "The reform of the Law of Science will improve the situation of science. Personally, I am in favor of indefinite contracts, in charge of any project. Any initiative against job insecurity is positive. This is one of the main advances" .
La Crue did send a letter to all the groups, to which this newspaper has had access, asking them to repeal the measure. Forcing public administration to carry out indefinite contracts for projects linked to competitive European funds – the most excellent – would imply an increase in spending for these entities that, they say, harm the organizations themselves, but also young researchers. "We understand that this additional provision 10 [donde quedó plasmada la obligatoriedad de contratar indefinidos] it seeks to reduce the falsely temporary contracts that are chained (...)”, the rectors concede, “but the current wording would have a double enormously negative impact on the research system in Spain”. On the one hand, they say, "the cost of compensation would double" compared to a temporary contract (in reality, it goes from 12 days per year worked to 20); on the other, they add, the increase in layoffs (since there are no temporary contracts when the projects are finished, researchers have to be fired), will entail Occupation Regulation Files, "subjected to the works council".
ERC Senator Reniu denies any outside influence. "Any decision has rivers of pressure going one way and the other at the same time," he explains. "If from the parliamentary action we paid attention to all the pressures, we would not do anything. There has been a very important debate within the party and the parliamentary groups of the Congress and Senate and an attempt has been made to find alternative formulas that have not deserved the support of part of the government".
And why have they changed their position in three weeks regarding what was voted in Congress? "Surely in that case the assessment that was made was not entirely correct. A huge job was done in Congress and this additional provision came at the last moment, within the vortex of the negotiation. What had been achieved was very important and in the agreements [alcanzados] the incorporation of a set of amendments entered" and the illustrious amendment 59 was not well evaluated, he justifies. "Luckily we have a second chamber for a second reading and to detect the improvable issues".
