Spain races to slash civil-service week to 35 hrs before march clock-out

Madrid is dusting off a promise it thought it had buried: 200,000 state employees could punch out 2½ hours earlier every week starting next month. After a three-week freeze, the Ministry of Public Service reopened talks late Tuesday with CC OO, UGT and CSIF to lock in the 35-hour ceiling before the calendar flips to April. The move would chop the current 37½-hour skeleton down to its leanest since the Transition, and the ripple is already rattling town halls, prisons and military barracks across the country.

Who keeps the cushion, who loses the chair

The sticking point is not money—it's membership. The government's first draft shields the armed forces, national police, prison wardens and most health and education staff from the cut. Unions want the circle widened, especially for prison staff who clock brutal rotating shifts. A technical meeting next Tuesday will try to stitch the gaps; a final vote at the General Negotiating Table is penciled for the last week of March. If the deal collapses again, sources inside the ministry warn the entire timetable slips into electoral no-man's-land.

Departments have been told to prepare