The Ministry of Labor and Social Economy has unlocked the regulation of labor relations in one of the largest industrial infrastructures in the Canary Islands. The General Directorate of Labor has resolved the registration and official publication of the III Collective Agreement of the company Moeve, S.A. (formerly Cepsa), a regulatory framework of 177 pages that unifies the operating conditions of its three large refineries, focusing operational and organizational management on the facilities in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The publication of the text in the Official State Gazette (BOE) ends a complex process of bureaucratic corrections that has been prolonged since the signing of the pre-agreement in December 2024 until the definitive validation of the negotiating commission in April 2026. The resolution, signed by the General Director María Nieves González García, provides legal certainty to a workforce subjected to the pressures of energy transformation and the uninterrupted logistical activity in the port of Tenerife.
The agreement establishes a rigid work schedule structure but adapted to the needs of a productive activity that operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The maximum duration of the annual ordinary working day is set at 1,826 hours, distributed in two strictly differentiated blocks. The first includes a regular distribution day of 1,680 hours, while the second block configures an irregular distribution pool of up to 146 hours annually.
Flexibility and security guards in island refining
This pool of irregular distribution hours responds to the operational peculiarities of refining and storing fuels at the Tenerife plant. The conventional text stipulates that these hours will only be required in the face of critical and urgent contingencies: essential repairs to avoid accidents or environmental impacts, payroll closing processes and monthly balances, unforeseen deviations in the scheduled shutdowns of the facilities, or the need to cover rotating shift positions that, for strict safety reasons, cannot remain unoccupied at any time.
For the normal shift personnel, the agreement introduces a model of hourly flexibility conditioned to the service needs, dividing into general and specific models based on mandatory presence windows and margins for entry or exit. However, the management of the Tenerife refinery maintains the organizational power to suspend both flexibility models during periods of shutdown and startup of the facilities, applying a rigid work regime in those scenarios to ensure the continuity of hydrocarbon supply.
The right to rest and vacations is also protected under a strict order of precedence. All personnel at the Tenerife refinery will have 25 working days of annual vacation, which must be planned before March 31 of each year. The agreement provides for economic penalties to safeguard these rest periods: if the management of the company requires the voluntary incorporation of a worker during their vacation, or within the four days prior to its commencement, the company will be obligated to pay a compensation of 50 euros for each day of interruption, in addition to covering all justified travel or hotel expenses.
An anti-absenteeism shock plan
The text of the third collective agreement directly addresses the control of absenteeism rates, a critical factor in highly specialized industrial plants. The management of Moeve and the union representation have set a joint objective to keep the overall absenteeism level below 5% annually at the Tenerife work center. Furthermore, the pact establishes a specific control threshold so that absences due to common illness, non-work-related accidents, and medical consultations do not exceed 48 hours per year per employee.
To counteract these losses of workdays without compromising the health of the workforce, the agreement regulates a system that combines preventive control with complementary economic coverage to Social Security. The company will provide direct salary supplements in cases of temporary incapacity, and, at the same time, will fund a specific economic fund designed to expedite the medical diagnosis of workers in cases where the public health system shows significant delays in performing clinical tests.
The entry into force of this labor framework stabilizes the operational costs of the company in the islands until the end of its validity, set for December 31, 2025, under a clause of ultra-activity. With the ratification of these rules, the Tenerife refinery consolidates its port logistics model, adapting the management of its human resources to the efficiency standards required by the international refined products market.
