Social inclusion enterprises are characterized by their core objective: the social and labour insertion of people in a situation of social exclusion (people, for example, who are free after years of jail, are ex drug addicts, etc).
With this norm, the Government wants to define a general framework for these enterprises, including the cooperative enterprises, after a prior qualification as "Social inclusion enterprises" that carry out any economic activity of production of goods or services. All of them should have a fundamental objective: the integration and social labour education of people in situation of social exclusion. The Social inclusion enterprises dedicate a part of their jobs positions to the disadvantaged people.
The enterprise trains them in the normalized exercise of a labour activity until they can obtain access to an ordinary employment. The new Law will regulate the requirements the enterprises that insert excluded people in the labour market should comply with and the actions they should develop.
Up to now, these businesses were regulated by Law 12/2001 of measures for the reform of the labour market and in other norms of autonomous features (Spain has different autonomous communities and each one can have its own regulations). It is estimated to more than 100.000, the people that will, in the future, benefit from this type of actions, who receive now the minimum incomes of insertion.
The Social Economy enterprises that represent the insertion businesses received this proposal favourably, considering that it is going to regulate a sector that already develops an important social function.
Source: COCETA, Spanish Federation of worker cooperatives
