The Government wants to approve this rule despite not having the support of the employers or the rectors

   MADRID, 12 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The proposal agreed between the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy and the unions on the Scholarship Statute, which is not final at the moment, includes a sanctioning regime for companies for failing to comply with the rights of students, with fines of up to 225,000 euros; a compensation of the expenses that the students have; and limits extracurricular practices to 480 hours.

This is reflected in the proposal for the Statute of people in non-labor practical training in the field of the company, colloquially known as the Scholarship Statute, to which Europa Press has had access.

The objective of this standard is to determine the periods of practical non-work training that can be carried out in the company, as well as to develop the legal regime that orders them.

The Scholarship Statute includes a sanctioning regime with fines for companies of between 120,006 and 225,018 euros in the event of very serious infractions in their maximum degree. If the infractions are considered very serious but in their minimum degree the fines will go from 7,501 to 30,000 euros, while in their medium degree they will be from 30,001 to 120,005 euros.

The infractions will be, according to the document, very serious when there is direct or indirect unfavorable discrimination due to age or disability or favorable or adverse in terms of remuneration, hours, training, promotion and other working conditions.

Likewise, very serious infractions will be considered those due to circumstances of sex; origin, including racial or ethnic; civil status; social conditions; religion or beliefs; political ideas; sexual orientation; adherence or not to unions and their agreements; Family ties with other workers in the company or language within the Spanish State, as well as unfavorable treatment of workers as a reaction to a claim made in the company or to an administrative or judicial action aimed at demanding compliance with the principle of equal opportunity. treatment and non-discrimination.

The companies in which the students carry out the training activities must also compensate the expenses of the students, in the terms provided in the corresponding convention or cooperation agreement, "for a minimum amount sufficient to compensate all those in which the person in training practice in the company incurs as a consequence of this, such as travel, lodging or maintenance expenses".

Among the periods of practical training in the company contemplated in the Scholarship Statute, it is noteworthy that the extracurricular internships carried out during official university master's degree studies or, where appropriate, doctorate, have finally been included in the agreement.

However, the extracurricular practices carried out during the studies must not exceed 15 percent of the hours in which the ECTS credits (European Credit Transfer System) of the degree are obtained or 480 hours.

Internships developed during studies linked to Universities' own titles have also been included, when the total sum of curricular and extracurricular internships does not exceed 25 percent of the ECTS credits of the corresponding degree. However, own titles that have a minimum duration of 60 ECTS credits will have the possibility of establishing internships for a period of 3 months.

The norm also includes the obligations that people undergoing practical training will have in the field of the company, such as complying with current regulations regarding external internships established by their training center; know and complete the training project of the practices, following the indications of the tutor assigned by the company under the supervision of the academic tutor; o Maintain contact with the academic tutor during the development of the internship and notify him of any incident that may arise during it, as well as deliver the documents and follow-up reports that are required.

Trainee students must also join the company on the agreed date, comply with the schedule established in the educational project and respect the operating, safety and occupational risk prevention standards of the same, as well as develop the training project and comply diligently the activities agreed with the company, in accordance with the lines established therein.

Other obligations of the interns will be to keep confidentiality in relation to the internal information of the company and to keep professional secrecy about their activities, during the period of practical training and after it; o Show, at all times, a respectful attitude towards the company's policy, safeguarding the good name of the training center to which it belongs.

CRUE Spanish Universities has shown its rejection of the Scholarship Statute project since, in its opinion, it constitutes "a threat" to the internship model in force in the Spanish university system.

Thus, the rectors show their discrepancy for the way in which it has been negotiated, since the internships of university students "are a strictly academic matter", for which reason they do not understand the reason why the unions and employers are the ones who agree its legal regime.

"There is no question of their ability --and that of the Ministry of Labor-- to set the border between what are academic practices and what are not, by configuring a true and proper work contract. But, once that border is established, unions and employers have nothing to decide regarding the legal regime of academic practices. This is an exclusively academic matter whose regulatory competence falls on the Ministry of Universities and on the universities themselves," the organization alleges.

In addition, it is "radically" opposed to the establishment of compulsory compensation for the expenses that the internship student may incur. For CRUE, it is an "unprecedented" provision in Spanish Law and maintains that its "immediate" consequence is that the number of companies and "above all" public entities willing to receive internship students will decrease "dramatically".

The Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) also has a position "opposite" to the agreement between the Government and the unions. In the first place, "because of the form", since it considers that "the approval of this norm is not appropriate in a period of dissolution of the Chambers nor is there an urgent and extraordinary need".

Secondly, the employers do not support this agreement "for the fund", since they believe that "it limits the number of hours so much and increases the bureaucracy so much that it will harm the practical training of the students, something essential to guarantee their employability and to build bridges between theoretical training and the world of work".

"In addition, there are discrepancies between the regulation of this standard and the recently approved university regulations, with which the risk of incurring sanctions due to lack of legal certainty is high," warns the CEOE.