The secretary general of the CCOO, Unai Sordo, has been convinced, this Wednesday, that the CEOE will only sit down to negotiate a three-year salary agreement (for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024) after an “intense” process of union mobilizations and, although he has defended that salaries must retain their purchasing power, he has been willing to negotiate with employers how this objective should be addressed throughout the entire period of the alleged State Collective Bargaining Agreement (AENC). In a meeting with the media, Sordo has also defended an increase in the interprofessional minimum wage that “absorbs” all the inflation this year, which would lead to exceeding the objective of 60% of the average salary committed by the Government and included in the European Social Charter and would point to an amount of around 1,100 euros for the year next.
The intended AENC, with a salary agreement for three years, is proposed as the cornerstone of the income agreement, of moderation of salaries and profit margins, which the Government has requested from the social agents. From the point of view of the CCOO, this income pact should also include a rise in the SMI for 2023 similar to the inflation of 2022, an improvement in the unemployment benefit, aid in the form of a direct payment for the most vulnerable families , and the activation of the new RED ertes mechanism in favor of sectors with temporary job reduction needs due to the effect of energy prices.
The price spiral debate
“In the face of those who accuse us of proposing an inflationary salary increase, we say that the way to reach a consensus to improve salaries without triggering an inflationary spiral is to agree on salary increases in 2022, 2023 and 2024 of between 3, 5% and 4.5%, and above all include a salary guarantee clause to gradually recover purchasing power”, said Sordo. Depending on the wages agreed for each of the three years, steps could be negotiated later with the employer to add additional increases, equivalent to the evolution of inflation, which guarantee that wages do not lose purchasing power, according to the union proposal. “In two years and five months (the period that remains until the end of 2024), inflation will moderate, companies will be able to increase their surpluses and will be able to compensate workers, once it has been avoided. the spiral of prices”, Sordo summarized, in defense of the proposal that the unions want to put forward before the employers.
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In May, the CCOO and UGT unions put a proposal on the negotiating table with the employers to raise minimum wage increases of 3.5% this year, 2.5% in 2023 and 2% in 2024 with revision clauses in the event that year-on-year inflation exceeds what was agreed, to avoid loss of purchasing power for workers. The salary revision proposal according to inflation was rejected by the employers and a negotiation that was expected to resume at the turn of the summer was interrupted. In public statements, the president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, continues to reject the union proposal to guarantee a salary increase similar to that of inflation, considering that this would fuel a spiral of price increases. This same Tuesday, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has asked businessmen “to put their shoulders to the wheel” to promote a rise in salaries and to sit down to talk so that “the negotiation of many collective agreements can be unblocked”. “We ask the bosses for a dose of responsibility,” said the president on Tuesday night in an interview on TVE’s Canal 24 Horas.
Just as the employers are inflexible when it comes to guaranteeing that wages rise the same as inflation in the 2022-2024 period, the unions exhibit the same firmness when claiming the wage guarantee clause. Sordo has only been open to negotiating how to deal with this recovery of purchasing power. “If the employers accepted a rise of 7% this year, which is unthinkable, of course we would be willing to give up a rise identical to inflation, which will surely be above 8%”, Sordo cited as an example, giving to understand that once the table is reopened there may be some room for dialogue. But the CCOO union is convinced that the bosses will only do this exercise after an “intense” period of mobilization. It is expected that in the next few days the UGT and CCOO will finish negotiating a calendar that, according to Sordo, will combine unitary mobilizations throughout Spain with other specific ones by sectors or companies that could even come together on certain dates. For now, at least, Sordo has ruled out a general strike.