More than two years after signing the agreement with employers and unions to articulate the advance payment of retirement in the most painful sectors of the economy, those that accumulate the most deaths and sick leave, no sector has accessed it through this new procedure. Several have demanded this improvement to Social Security, adding petitions that concern some two million employees, but the Executive has not resolved a single request. Neither those raised by unions and employers together (in road transport) nor those that only bear the signature of the centrals, with a great delay in the deadlines established by the Government itself.
Social Security does not explain why such a delay is due in a procedure that does not need parliamentary support to move forward and which should not be influenced by the electoral call, since it is an administrative procedure. The unions regret the Government's "non-compliance" with these "agreed" deadlines, criticize the lack of business support in various sectors and warn of mobilizations "whoever governs."
To understand this story, it is worth going back about two years, when the Government signed the pact with CC OO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme that included this new procedure. It is the only major social dialogue agreement of the current legislature, the only time in which the Government has obtained employer support since the 2023 elections.
The decree that articulates this policy, approved by the Council of Ministers in May 2025, establishes that employers and representative unions in a sector can request Social Security to study whether there is a sufficient rate of casualties and accidents to anticipate withdrawal in the most sacrificed activities, whenever it is impossible to mitigate the hardship with corrective measures. After the preparation of several reports, they are transferred to an evaluation commission, which issues a recommendation, and the last word belongs to Social Security. If the reducing coefficients (the technical name of the tool) are granted, there is an overpayment that must compensate for the effect of the advance (at the earliest, up to age 52) on the public coffers.
The sector with the most deaths in the economy, construction, was the first to request this study, just two months later. CC OO and UGT asked Social Security in July 2025 to analyze the convenience of bringing forward the retirement in an activity that accumulated 164 deaths in 2025. Then, after the summer of 2025, the second sector with the most deaths (93), road transport, requested it. In this activity, CC OO and UGT were joined by the most representative employers' associations in the sector, CETM in merchandise and Confebus in passenger transport. They did it because they had committed to it to defuse a strike months ago.
Social Security prefers that the requests be agreed upon by unions and employers, but there is a way for the study to be developed even if the companies reject it: the decree establishes that in that case the Government can initiate it, at the request of the union (or employers') request, if it considers that there are accident and disability rates that justify it. "That point, which avoids the employers' veto, was the most difficult to negotiate. But in the end CEOE and Cepyme accepted it," emphasizes Carlos Bravo, the head of Public Policies and Social Protection at CC OO.
This business support has made the freight and passenger transport files, which employ some 570,000 people, progress more than the rest (several mandatory reports have been prepared), but they are also out of time according to the planned procedure. The Government should have resolved these files in six months, but it has been more than a year since they were registered. “It is going frankly slow, with a clear failure to comply with all the agreed deadlines,” laments Cristina Estévez, confederal executive secretary of UGT and responsible for Social Security policies. He says that the ministry alludes to “lack of personnel” as one of the reasons for the delay, “but too much time has passed.”
Estévez believes that the Government will not grant transport coefficients before the elections, an idea echoed by Bravo: “It seems that they have made the political decision not to continue with this, even though there is no reason not to move forward with it.” Those responsible for CC OO's transportation area have threatened a strike in the sector if Social Security does not resume the process. “Take it for granted that we are going to take to the streets if this does not change,” adds Estévez, whose organization already announced a sectoral strike months ago due to these delays and canceled it due to the commitment that the Government would not drop the files. The ministry does not tell EL PAÍS if it plans to advance these files before the elections.
The complaint about the lack of progress in Social Security is not limited to the central offices. “I understand the anger of the unions because it is a demand that by deadline should already be underway and there is nothing,” says Carmelo González, president of the freight transport employers' association. He regrets that the unions are considering strikes due to this delay, when the association he presides has supported the file: "Taking into account that we joined at the time, I would not like it. We already have enough problems, with constant increases in costs."
The status of the other major request, that of construction, is more complex. It does not have the support of the sector's largest employers' association, CNC, and is pending a collection of information that Social Security began in the summer. Then a decree was approved that requires all companies to provide additional information before March of next year about what their workers do to take it into account when studying requests to anticipate retirement. The text is applicable in more sectors, but it was approved with construction in mind, after the unions demanded the advance payment for one million employees. Now the centers assume that there will be many fewer beneficiaries, without specifying how many. Different specialists have been insisting that work at height, in road maintenance or under water are some of the most exposed and in which the early withdrawal would be most justified.
Other requests have followed. In April, the self-employed association linked to UGT, UPTA, together with other professional organizations, requested coefficients for taxi drivers (they estimate that it could benefit around 50,000 employees). The Antaxi employer also plans to request them, but is waiting for the result of the passenger transport request to modify its proposal.
Then, in July, UGT registered the request for 150,000 housekeepers, the hotel cleaners. Although in most sectors the norm is coordination between the two large centers, in this case CC OO considers that UGT took this step in search of an asset to boast about in the union elections, skipping coordination between centers.
At the return of summer, two other requests have emerged, in both cases without employer support but with CC OO and UGT aligned: the unions demanded it at the beginning of October for 161,000 home help employees and last week for 14,000 airport handling workers, workers dedicated to moving suitcases from one place to another, among other tasks. The Social Security specialists of the unions emphasize that the granting of the coefficient does not require parliamentary support, but that the change in the contribution does have the status of law.
Throughout the legislature, coefficients have been granted to some professional groups, but not through this new objective means agreed with unions and employers. This is the case of agents and forest firefighters, but unions criticize that this path has not been taken with cabin crew. Unlike pilots, despite being subject to the same risks, these workers do not retire sooner. Social Security could grant them that right by including them in the decree that already regulates the early retirement of pilots, and the party that controls this department, the PSOE, supported in Congress a non-law proposal from Sumar in this regard, but has not taken that step.
Social Security has approached this entire process with lead feet, trying to lower expectations and emphasizing that coefficients will only be granted to groups that sufficiently justify it, and in which palliative measures do not reduce hardship. The caution of Saiz's department occurs at a time of tension for Social Security accounts, with increasingly higher benefits (due to the better salaries of those who retire and the recovery of the revaluation with the CPI) and more numerous (due to the retirement of the baby boom). However, the design of the standard establishes that these coefficients would not negatively affect the accounts, given the increase in the contribution that would be associated with it.
