The president of the CEOE employers' association, Antonio Garamendi, has refused to negotiate "neither now nor ever" an agreement with clauses that directly link wages to inflation and has insisted that these mechanisms are a "trap" that damages business competitiveness and employment .
In an interview with EFE, Garamendi pointed out that the lack of flexibility of the unions, which demand the inclusion of these clauses in the framework of a new agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC), is what makes "impossible" reach an agreement.
"One thing is to put an amount and another thing is to accept 'sine die' that from now on wages go with the CPI," Garamendi maintains, who maintains that the important thing is that collective bargaining, agreement by agreement, continues to work.
The leader of the employers' association underlines the difficulty of reaching a general salary recommendation in a context like the current one, although he does see a way forward for the agreement but without these mechanisms.
"We are not saying that there is no salary increase (...) I do see a path to the agreement but not to implement the clause (...) neither now nor ever," Garamendi insists.
Along with this, he has also pointed out that the Government's measures, such as the increase of 8.6% of the maximum bases, do not facilitate the situation and has recognized that after this decision, "unilateral" and without dialogue, the agreement for the second part of the pension reform is complicated.
"We are going to continue sitting down but the agreement is not going to be easy because there is practically nothing left to talk about," he acknowledged.
He has also been critical of budgets that he sees as "misaligned" and that do not address the problem of the deficit in a context of high rates.
Garamendi also points out the room for improvement in the functioning and efficiency of the State and rejects that, when a Budget project is criticized, there is talk of cuts in items such as health or education.
A little more than a month before he faces his renewal as president of the employers' association - given the absence of more candidates at the moment - Garamendi says he has felt supported among his ranks in all the decisions made during his term.
"All the agreements except two - the first of the ERTE and the labor reform - have had unanimous support in this house," he has made clear, while ruling out that these unruly votes responded to a rejection of the consensus reached.
Thus, Garamendi denounces the "stories" that interpret those votes at times and for certain reasons as a rejection of his administration.
"Does abstention mean that? I don't think so and you just have to see the support I'm having at the moment" ahead of the next CEOE elections, to be held on November 23.
The self-employed employers (ATA), metal (Confemetal), dealers (Ganvam), young entrepreneurs (Ceaje), SMEs (Cepyme), construction (CNC), insurance (Unespa), commerce (CEC) or Madrid (CEIM) have already publicly expressed its support for the candidacy of Antonio Garamendi.
"Courage is reaching agreements", something that "is not always easy", because the fifteen agreements reached with the Government have taken place "in difficult times", but always demonstrating "the social responsibility that we have".
As major milestones within the CEOE, Garamendi is proud of the greater transparency achieved and the modernization carried out in these four years, making room for everyone: "the large, the medium, the small and also the self-employed".
