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In February 2008 a law was passed defining and regulating new job attachments, careers and remunerations of staff fulfilling public functions, putting an end to the traditional distinction between civil servants and contractual staff - subordinated to the civil service system - and contracted staff under an individual employment contract - subject to general labour law.

In accordance with this law a new legal-labour model appears in the Public Administration; as a result the great majority of job attachments will now be of a contractual nature. With the exception of determined activities, which for involving the exercise of authority or of sovereign powers shall be performed on an appointment system, the majority of public functions are to be fulfilled by signing an Employment Contract in Public Functions. The Employment Contract in Public Functions System, set out in a law recently published in September, autonomously regulates this new job attachment.

The passage of the new system translates an approximation to the common labour system, highlighting collective bargaining. As a consequence, in the future various matters may be the subject of collective bargaining (for example, performance reward systems, part-time working conditions, annual limit of overtime, etc).

As examples of convergence, in which the Labour Code system was followed, the following are to be noted: adaptability to working hours, part-time work, now without any limits, or telework; the possible reduction of normal working hours or of suspension of the contract whenever the temporary, partial or total impossibility of performance of work is verified due to a fact related to the worker and in agreement with the parties concerned; and the signing of a pre-reform agreement, between the worker and the public employer.

In other matters the systems still in force and effect in the Public Administration are maintained, such as the limits to working time (7 hours per day and 35 hours per week), as well as the overtime (100 hours per year and 2 hours per normal working day) and the holiday period (25 working days of holidays, being this period progressively extended in accordance with the age and seniority of the worker).