One issue separates employers and unions from the path of continuous agreements over the last two years: wages. This has already happened with regard to the minimum wage and is now under the state-level reference collective bargaining agreement, the AENC. CEOs and CCOO and UGT centers have framed their central focus on wage growth in the context of excessive inflation in this and subsequent years. Since there is an example of consensus in social dialogue with the government, even on difficult issues such as labor reform, social agents maintain very conflicting positions in this case, which could complicate a bilateral agreement. This is an essential part of the so-called “revenue agreement” that the government is seeking to compensate for the economic damage caused by the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, significant differences between the parties were confirmed, following an internal meeting by the CEO to establish his position in the wage debate. Employers have rejected the main demand of the unions, the purchasing power guarantee clauses, to adjust wages to inflation in the coming years.
Given the context of rising prices by almost 10% due to the energy crisis, many voices warn of the risks of creating second-round inflation loops by spreading this huge growth to other sectors of the economy. One such element is salary. In the face of this situation, the CCOO and UGT will receive more moderate wage increases currently but with the inclusion of purchasing power guarantee provisions, allowing workers to gradually regain purchasing power in the coming years.
The unions offered employers a pay rise of 3.4%, 2.5% in 2023 and 2% in 2024, with a guarantee of restoring their lost purchasing power in 2020, depending on how inflation will eventually remain: 50%. The lost purchasing power will be corrected at the end of this year, and the rest will be redistributed in 2023-2024. This offer and acceptance of any point in the payroll guarantee is what employers decided this Friday.
Employers have offered to increase wages over the next three years, without adjusting to prices. UGT reported that the proposal was a 7% increase over three years: 3% in 2022 and 2% in 2023 and 2024. Expansión expected the bid to reach 8% during this period and this would be conditional. Maintain employment and growth levels.
In any case, the main dispute between the two parties is not the number that indicates a salary increase over the next three years at the state level, but the existence of provisions for the guarantee of purchasing power. Employers are reluctant to accept them because they argue that it means legitimizing wages related to inflation and they are afraid of a precedent that may arise in the future. The unions, for their part, insist that this is a necessary measure, as the greater burden of this excessive inflation cannot fall on workers who have accumulated impoverishment since the recent economic crisis.
With both opposing positions, there are those who see more and more the possibility that collective bargaining will ultimately fail to reach an agreement. This part is essential in the demand for a “Revenue Agreement” by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
From Moncloa and the Department of Labor, they insist that the wage debate is outside the government, a matter of collective bargaining, but given the example of the possibility of social dialogue over the past two years, there are those who believe that if an agreement between employers and unions is final For mediation.
The Ministry of Labor understands that the solution lies in protecting wages, “not responsible for inflation,” they recall, “without devaluation prescriptions, but a fair commitment that also includes business income.” Antonio Garamendi, a business leader from the Employers’ Association, confirmed that companies are already trying not to shift the rise in energy costs to prices.
The unions argue that all leases require a wage agreement, but also that this is not the only part of a real lease, nor should it be the first. There they point to the government.
The CCOO and the UGT are urging the executive to move forward and specify its national response plan for the most vulnerable to Ukraine over-invasion, such as the CCOO proposal for a € 300 social bonus for the lowest-income people. Rising prices and the fact that energy companies will be required to contribute to this crisis with their “profits from heaven”, in the words of their leader, Unai Sordo. The UGT called for more specific measures for low-wage workers, such as those earning the minimum wage.
The unions want to agree on wages at the state level, but they also doubt the agreement in the face of this great uncertainty, in the face of extremely high inflation and without a European guarantee of a gas price that the government is defending. Some voices close to the debate believe that if no agreement is reached in the short term, a wage agreement may be reached later, once the following measures of price restraint are known. It is not the same to agree on a 3% wage increase in the face of almost 10% inflation and to forecast an average CPI for 6 or 7% a year, rather than doing so with new, much more comprehensive estimates of inflation.
Both employers and unions have warned after Friday’s disagreement that their intention is to continue negotiations, that this is not the end point. After the resurrection we must surely see whether the parties will reach that point of difference. The agreement (or absence) should be made without much delay, “in the coming weeks,” the unions say.
Source: El Diario
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