They warn companies of a “social tinderbox” if collective agreement negotiations are not unlocked
Under the slogan ‘The solution: raise wages, keep prices in check, more equality’, the unions have taken this May day back to the streets of more than 60 Spanish cities in a unique celebration to be the first without restrictions since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Trade unions will also arrive on Labor Day invigorated after making remarkable progress last year with the agreements on labor market reform, raising the Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI) and updating pensions with the CPI.
A huge leap that has significantly improved the relationship and the climate with the government, although not so much with the businessmen, for whom a large part of the demands of the day are in force in Madrid for the second year running with the presence of the Minister of Labour, Yolanda Díaz, alongside the General Secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, and the General Secretary of the CCOO, Unai Sordo. The marches are also attended by the government spokesman, Isabel Rodríguez, the Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, as well as the Secretary of State for Employment and Social Economy, Joaquín Pérez Rey, among others.
For his part, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, also wanted to make a statement to celebrate the day through his official Twitter account, assuring that “protecting labor rights, guaranteeing the best working conditions, equality between men and women or promoting training for employment. We have been working on this since the beginning of the legislature, with social dialogue and fair government policies. We are moving forward.”
The tone of the unions is resolutely against The warning is clear. In the manifesto accompanying the marches that started at noon, CC OO and UGT make it clear that “it is important to develop collective bargaining” that stops the dynamics of the loss of purchasing power of wages, “to avoid the emergence of a social tinderbox and economic recovery at risk.
“As everyone knows, the Collective Labor Agreement (ANC) has been blocked and if it is not unblocked, the unions will carry out a process of growing mobilization around collective bargaining negotiations,” Unai Sordo warned during his intervention before the start of the march in Madrid.
The CC OO leader urged unions not to “compromise” with the “boycott of corporate organizations against a collective bargaining agreement to raise wages”. “It cannot be that they intend to pass on the increase in energy costs to the prices for the citizens and that the crisis is paid for by the workers,” he denounced.
As he has criticized, the “inequality”, the “uncertainty” and the “lack of expectations of a no less part of the Spanish population”, as well as “the rural world” which “stays outside the channels of the modernization of the country” ‘, ‘explain the rise of far-right options’.
For this reason, he has called for “exposure to those who send messages to workers and vote against the rise in the SMI, the revaluation of pensions, the labor reform”, he has indicated, referring to parties like Vox, for what has called for to “restoring a social contract for the 21st century” as “a way to counter neo-fascism”.
Pepe Álvarez (UGT) for his part stressed that May 1 is a day of “celebration” and “proud”, given the advancements such as the “Riders Law”, the Telework Act, the two agreements signed in the pension or labor reform . “We are changing the face of our workers’ rights, but there is still a long way to go.”
In this sense, he refers to the recovery of “rights from the redundancy update point of view” since, as he complained, “you can’t keep getting fired for anything” as well as the processing of redundancies, at what cost an employee is paid layoffs or the processing fee.
While inflation skyrocketed to 8.4% in April, calls for an income pact between employers and unions have been a constant in recent weeks, according to data released by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). But the employee representatives assume that such an agreement with the CEOE is practically impossible today.
In the manifesto of the day, CC OO and UGT defend that “workers and collective bargaining have not contributed to the rise in inflation, but rather correspond to the rise in corporate prices to rebuild their profit margins”.
They believe that “it is essential to ensure the purchasing power of households, especially those with fewer resources.” And that’s why they call “the increases in SMI and pensions in reference to the rise in the cost of living.”
On this point, they point directly to the bosses commanded by Antonio Garamendi, assuring that «UGT AND CCOO have tried to negotiate the V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining, and we will not stop to achieve it, with salary formulas that preserving purchasing power”.
Revise formulas that, in his view, “do not deviate from what the employers themselves claim for themselves in the administrative concession agreements.”
The unions are pushing at this point in their claim to include wage review clauses in collective agreements that prevent a loss of purchasing power amid runaway inflation. have become one of the main sources of friction in the negotiations with the CEOE, with other organizations such as the Bank of Spain supporting the employers’ association by ensuring that this type of formula – which serves to protect salaries against increases in the CPI and guarantee the purchasing power of payrolls – can pose a serious risk to the good performance of the labor market in the medium term.
In a recent report, the body commanded by Pablo Hernández de Cos points out that the percentage of agreements signed with these safeguard clauses before 2022 rose significantly in the first two months of this year, “to almost 30% of employees with a registered agreement, after having fallen below 20% in recent years, and that percentage rises to 50% if the agreements already made for 2023 are taken into account, according to the data processed by the institution.
However, the figure is lower than the 70% that this type of armor represented in the agreements prior to the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis. But the recent increase is worrying the regulator, given the risk of a spiral of wage-price increases with harmful effects. on the activity.
Faced with the criticism of business, the Labor Day manifesto for this 2022 is much more benevolent than other years with the government. The arrangements made on pensions or the labor market have calmed the relationship between the parties, and the CCOO and UGT appreciate the steps taken with the labor reform in terms of strengthening collective bargaining “recovery of ultra-activity of the collective agreements” positive. , the predominance of application of the sectoral agreement over the company agreement and the guarantee of the application agreement in contracts and subcontractors».
“It is above all a reform that brings about very important changes in the labor model, focusing on the maintenance and stability of employment, in contrast to the previous model of labor instability and the adjustment of the labor market aimed at redundancies and misuse of temporary hire », reads the manifesto for this 1 May.
The two main trade unions in the country are also confident that these reforms will help improve the quality of employment, “at a pace unknown before the growth of the open-ended contract, putting it at the center of of industrial relations in our country”.
After the labor market reform pact, the trade unions have now faced the challenge of “reviewing the causes and costs of layoffs to avoid using it as a means of adaptation, on the contrary to the adaptation internal document of the mechanisms that contains the agreement reached in the context of the social dialogue”.
AC
Madrid. The Second Vice-President of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, announced this Sunday that “in the coming days”, and after the recent adoption of the labor reform, the first procedures will be launched to amend the statute of Workers, a demand unions have maintained for years against the various governments that have passed through Moncloa in recent years.
Speaking ahead of the start of the May 1 demonstration in Madrid, Díaz confirmed that the committee of experts responsible for “the great reform” of labor law in Spain will be constituted. “We are not satisfied; we must tell young people that the insecurity after the labor reform will end, that they will have a future and that they will not receive waste contracts, that they can return to our country to live with dignity,” he told the minister during her meeting. speech.
Speaking of the reform Díaz has introduced with a new workers’ statute “of the 21st century”, Díaz indicated that “it is time to change the labor reality from top to bottom” compared to the “old” statute of the 20th century that ” had authoritarian undertones.” Likewise, the second vice president also expected the government to work with unions and employers in the coming weeks on a bill of institutional participation, emphasizing the importance of dialogue with social actors in decision-making.
Díaz took advantage of his speech to recall some of the measures taken by the government in recent months. “Together with the unions, we have increased the Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI) by 33%. We have made laws for equal pay. We have made laws for vulnerable workers, as well as the Equestrian Law,” he recalled in his speech at the start of the demonstration.
At this point, Díaz claimed that this Labor Day is the first to take to the streets in Spain “to say that workers’ lives have improved”.
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.
