It was negotiated in the Ministry of Labor, but the announcement was kept by the President of the Government in the Senate. The interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) will rise retroactively from January 1 to the current 1,000 euros per month, in 14 payments, up to 1,080. An 8% increase agreed between the Government and the unions, but without the employers, who not only did not join the consensus, but also refused to attend the negotiating meeting, which has been harshly criticized by the Government and unions.
The news of the agreement came through President Pedro Sánchez, who stressed that Spain is the second OECD country that has raised the SMI the most, raising it from 735 euros when he came to government to 1,080 that will be applied this year. Announcement accompanied by criticism against large companies that make benefits and do not raise wages. “If the wages of the middle classes and also of the working classes have not risen as much as they should throughout this decade, it is also the result of an economic model that was imposed then, based on competing in costs and attracting companies because here we paid lower wages than the rest of Europe”, Sánchez stated.
With this 8% increase, the SMI is within the range established by the commission of experts, which placed it between 1,046 and 1,082 euros. Yolanda Díaz already stated last week that they would go for the "high stretch" and this has been the case, which has also satisfied the unions, who had demanded to set it between 1,080 and 1,100 euros. The last fringes were created in a meeting between the Ministry of Labor and the unions on Tuesday at 11 in the morning that ended up becoming another of a higher level, in which Minister Díaz and the general secretaries Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez participated. They agreed on the agreement, but left Sánchez the role of announcing it.
After reaching the agreement, the unions expressed their satisfaction with this increase, which will benefit 2.3 million employees, representing 13.7% of the total, according to calculations by the unions. An increase that affects above all women, youth and agricultural workers. Simplifying, the robot portrait of the main SMI recipient will be a woman between the ages of 16 and 34, with a temporary contract, who works in agriculture or the service sector.
However, the unions stress that the rise will also boost the economy thanks to the fact that it will mean higher consumption, precisely at a time when household consumption is falling drastically as a result of high inflation. “This 8% increase goes directly to help increase consumption. The people who are going to receive it are not going to save it, they are going to spend it”, said Pepe Álvarez. "This increase goes entirely to consumption," Unai Sordo has insisted along the same lines.
The two trade unionists also criticized the absence of the CEOE. "It is a bad precedent... it is negative," said Álvarez, while Sordo added that the absence of the CEOE "is not an anecdote nor can it be considered a tantrum, it is an attitude that must be censored and reproached." The Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Pérez, also charged against the employer sit-in, who described it as “irresponsible”.
The final result, with an increase to 1,080 euros, corresponds to the demands of the unions, which ranged between 1,080 and 1,100, and instead is well above what the CEOE accepted, 1,040 euros and with added conditions. . Two conditions in particular, bonuses for farmers and modification of public sector contracts to index increases in the SMI.
Before the agreement was announced, the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, already stated that "if they are not going to talk about it (the situation of farmers and public sector contracts), then they tell us the figure and that's it ”. Subsequently, employer sources added that the rise in the SMI is a prerogative of the Government and that they have already made a proposal (the 1,040 euros) "that we considered the most appropriate to offset the impact of the rise in inflation without generating second-hand effects." round".
In reality, the negotiators had been ruling out the possibility that the employers would end up joining a possible consensus for some time. Its relations with the Ministry of Labor continue to be bad, and the CEOE wants to put it in evidence. In this way, it is explained that he planted the negotiators in the first meeting on December 21, and also in the second, held this Tuesday. They insist, and rightly so, that raising the SMI is the prerogative of the Government, but, in the background, there is also the objective of distancing itself from the Executive, at a time when there is strong discomfort in employers due to the repeated criticisms of members of the Government to employers as responsible for inflation or not increasing wages.
