MADRID, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The Spanish government has no plans to cut unemployment benefits or salaries as part of labour reforms to spur a recovery from a deep economic crisis, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Wednesday.
"We stand by our social obligations and we will not, at any time, reduce workers' rights," Zapatero told members of the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) union.
The International Monetary Fund has warned Spain could face years of low growth and high unemployment without an overhaul of its labour and service sectors.
The IMF has called for an end to Spain's widespread indexation of wages to inflation which has raised business costs and cut the competiveness of the country's workforce.
Amid expectations that Spain's inflation will drop to 1 percent next year, Zapatero said he hopes the government can reach a wage agreement with labour and business organizations for 2009.
The Washington-based fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development propose reforms to make it cheaper for companies to fire workers on long-term contracts and hire young and immigrant workers who are cheaper.
"Through dialogue, and only through dialogue, will we establish reforms to improve competiveness," the prime minister told the union members.
In November, the CCOO, Spain's largest union with 1.2 million members, said it would strike if the government tried to cut unemployment benefits.
Registered jobless have risen by over half a million in the last three months as hundreds of thousands were laid off from the construction and services sector.
Announcements of thousands of lay-offs at multinational car manufacturers operating in Spain has helped fuel calls to streamline the labour market. (Reporting by Paul Day; Editing by Andrew Hay and Toby Chopra)