The Government has asked the social agents to negotiate a three-year rent restraint agreementuntil 2025. After a meeting of almost three hours between representatives of the Government, employers and unions, the economic vice president, Nadia Calvino, has explained that this has been the proposal that the Executive has formulated to the social agents and that he has seen them “open to conclude that income pact”. However, both union representatives -in public- and employers -in private- were skeptical and unenthusiastic at the end of the meeting.
In the face of “the important challenges” facing the Spanish economy and the “complex months” in a situation of high inflation, “it is essential that business margins do not expand and the salaries grow moderately”, Vice President Calviño has formulated, without wanting to provide any more details about what type of elements should be part of that income pact.
The vice president has not assessed whether the salary review clause demanded by the unions to guarantee the purchasing power of wages in a context of high inflation should be part of this agreement or not. Nor has it specified what new measures the Government is willing to put on the table to grease an agreement that was not possible in the spring. Yes, Calviño has said that the Government’s commitment to place the interprofessional minimum wage at 60% of the average salary at the end of the legislature, next year. But this commitment already existed from the beginning of the legislature; It is nothing new to put on the table as an element of negotiation, as the Secretary for Trade Union Action and Employment of the CCOO has underlined, Mari Cruz Vicenteand the Deputy Secretary General for Trade Union Policy of the UGT, Mariano Hoya.
Calviño has explained that the “discreet” negotiation will begin immediately. In this context, he has mentioned that the third vice-president, Teresa Ribera, will summon the social agents next week to talk about the contingency plan that the Government must prepare in response to possible problems of energy supply in the coming fall and winter.
Business and union sources also clarified that the Government has asked them both to sit down again in September to resume the negotiation of the three-year State Collective Bargaining Agreement (AENC) that was interrupted last May due to disagreement between both parties. on the incorporation, or not, of the salary guarantee clause.
“An income pact does not go through a containment of wages in our country exclusively,” said Mari Cruz Vicente. “We are willing to reopen the bipartite negotiations, but at the end of each year, wages must guarantee purchasing power,” he added. “If it is a collective commitment, in which we all make an effort, of course we will be in that pact”, Mariano Hoya pointed out.
At the end of the meeting, both union representatives admitted that “the chances of reaching an agreement on rents are the same now as they were a month or a few weeks ago.”
The CEOE and Cepyme representatives refused to make a public assessment after the meeting, but sources from both employers later conveyed some skepticism about the content of the meeting, although they were open to sitting down with the union representatives again to resume the bipartisan negotiation.
No less than nine ministers were present at the meeting, from the Government, as well as the highest representatives of the CEOE and Cepyme employer associations, Antonio Garamendi Y Gerardo Cuerva and the secretary general of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez. On behalf of the CCOO, the Secretary for Trade Union Action and Employment has attended, Mari Cruz Vicentebecause the general secretary could not participate, unai deaf. Neither was the Minister of Labor present, Yolanda Diazon official travel in Rome.
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On behalf of the Government, the first vice presidents have been, Nadia Calvino-chairing the meeting- and third, Theresa Riveraas well as the holders of Finance, Transport, Education, Territorial Policy and Science and Innovation and the holders of Social Security and Universities.
The meeting had been scheduled for weeks to follow up on the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, but this Monday, the vice president Nadia Calvino surprised all those summoned with the announcement that the meeting was going to be used to try resurrect the negotiation of a rent agreement between employers, unions and government. The vice president added this item to the meeting’s agenda, to the surprise of the social agents, after warning that the coming quarters “are going to be complex” in the face of a scenario of inflation “more persistent and higher” than expected. In June, the advance data of the CPI marks a rate of 10.2%, the highest in 37 years.