Employers and unions are at the expense of the collegiate decision of the European Union to close a wage agreement for the coming years
The Government has had this Monday the hand of employers and unions so that they join with a rent agreement to the war response plan. The first vice president, Nadia Calvino, has offered aid to families to pay for energy supplies and thus convince the plants. While with the other hand he has addressed the employers with credits and liquidity measures for the companies. In exchange, he has asked them to help “avoid an inflationary spiral”, that is, that the CEOE agree to raise salaries, but not to the level of the CPIwhich implies that CCOO and UGT accept losses in purchasing power in the short term. The social partners have listened to the eight-point plan that the Government has presented to them, but they are waiting expectantly for the European Union’s resolution on the energy pricing system. If governments can intervene to lower prices, the response of employers and unions will be one; if they can’t and inflation continues to skyrocket, it will be another.
The income pact is taking shape as part of a global and coordinated response that the Government wants to give to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine. “The situation is not easy, but we all agree that we must stop the rise in energy,” Calviño declared after Monday’s conclave, which lasted about three hours. For this, he has listed an action plan with eight undefined axes and that during the next few days and before the March 29 they will finish specifying with the social agents.
The Government has promised to lower the price of energy, especially for the most vulnerable families; credit for the financial stability of companies, aid for the most affected sectors of activity; avoid a inflationary spiral; guarantee supplies; speed up the energy transition european funds; boost the energy efficiency and reinforce the cybersecurity.
waiting for the EU
However, the social agents still do not see the complete package clearly and, from their respective positions, express doubts. “It is absolutely necessary that there be a forceful intervention in the pricing system. Drastic measures must be taken”, claimed the general secretary of the CCOO, unai deaf. “The Government has to have instruments to be able to intervene,” his UGT counterpart has revealed, Pepe Alvarez. The plants mark two red lines: intervene in the energy pricing system and not carry out general tax cuts. The employers have not wanted to make statements about the meeting.
All parties are at the expense of the outcome of the European Councilscheduled for March 24 and 25, where the EU states will try to agree on coordinated measures to contain the escalation of prices. From CCOO and UGT they advocate removing the gas from the count and thus prevent it from triggering the final megawatt bill. Until now, the CEOE has rejected the verb “intervene”. The result of the European conclave will be key, because if the Government does not manage to equip itself with tools that allow it to reduce the general price escalation in the short term -the CPI is at 7.6%-, the measures that will be demanded from the social dialogue they will be one or the other. And the rent agreement will or will not fit within them.
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The social agents negotiate in parallel their salary agreement for the next three years and thus guide the negotiation of future agreements. If inflation falls in the short term, union wage demands will be lower than if the CPI breaks double digits throughout the year, as it threatens to do under current circumstances. And if companies pay less energy bills, raw materials are less expensive and they face lower salary demands, they may be more receptive to accepting the figures that the power plants present to them.
At the moment, exact figures have not come out about the range of wage increases discussed by employers and unions. Discretion prevails from doors to the outside, at the expense of whether said salary agreement is in the interest of the social agents to fit it into the Government’s plan of response to the war. Otherwise, the parties will continue negotiating to close their bipartite pact, apart from and with autonomy from the aid and policies that the Executive has.