Employers avoid giving a specific salary increase percentage this year, but make it clear that they must refuse to link it to inflation
Finally, the CEOE will not recommend a specific percentage of the salary increase for this year. Not even a hairpin, as has often happened. But they do make two things clear in the recommendation document their executive committee approved this Tuesday, following the failure of the negotiations they had with the unions: they will be prudent and moderate increases and in no case will they be linked to inflation. , as demanded the UGT and CCOO.
It will be each sector or company in particular that will have to decide how far it wants to go in the most 4,000 open tables. But yes, at least from the employers they acknowledge that, although it is not explicitly considered in the letter, the maximum they consider is what they have offered to the unions: an 8% salary improvement over three years: a 3, 5% in 2022, 2.5% in 2023 and 2% in 2024, as this paper confirms.
Businessmen stress that the situation and prospects for the Spanish economy for, at least the fiscal year 2022, “have deteriorated significantly” after the start of the war in Ukraine and, given this global context of “uncertainty”, call on their representatives to make an “effort to moderate wages to maintain business viability and competitiveness and maintain employment”. In this sense, they warn that a “significant wage increase” would lead to an increase in labor costs, which could hinder access to the labor market for the more than three million unemployed in Spain, while at the same time contributing to the inflation spiral. and would assume a smaller margin to introduce variable remuneration criteria.
For this reason, they recommend not linking wage increases to “concepts that are as volatile” as inflation, which also “feeds back price growth.” If this is the case, limits or ceilings should be established, they point out. Instead, they propose “replacing outdated pay concepts with others related to productivity and results” and “evolving towards variable pay systems, established with objective, transparent and neutral criteria from a gender perspective, to make progress in eliminating More specifically, they propose linking wage increases to “quantifiable and measurable economic variables and indicators” such as productivity, employment, GDP performance, the competitive guarantee indicator and, in the case of companies, their results or EBITDA .
The employers also remain determined not to accept any form of revision clause with inflation at the end of the year – which was actually the stumbling block for which the negotiations failed – and reiterate in this document that it is “essential that salary updates are not retroactive because the costs of the product or service cannot be passed on.
Likewise, the CEOE reminds companies that, in the event that they are unable to accept the terms agreed in an agreement, they have the option of using a withdrawal procedure “when there are economic, technical, organizational or production reasons”, as up to Finally, the counter-labor reform has not touched this element introduced in 2012, despite the initial intention of Vice President Yolanda Díaz.
“It is not wise to raise wages,” warned CEOE President Antonio Garamendi on Tuesday, pointing out that the “main objective” is to have employment, “to put employment above all else on the table and for that it is necessary that companies have the capacity to create or keep that job.” In any case, he recalled that the country is going through a “difficult time” and that the “situation is very different” for each company, depending on its sector.
On the other hand, Garamendi acknowledged that employers and unions are “in a difficult moment” to reach an agreement on the AENC, although he did not rule out that they could sit down “later”. “We have found that we cannot reach an agreement at the moment,” he emphasized.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
