The increase in the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) to 1,080 euros per month that the Council of Ministers approved yesterday further deepens the confrontation that the Government and employers have maintained in recent months. The decision to increase the SMI by 8% had been taken since January 31, in a meeting between the Ministry of Labor and the unions, in which the CEOE refused to participate. In this way, the employers wanted to make their disagreement explicit not only with the amount of the increase but also with the ways in which the negotiation was carried out. "Let them tell us the figure and that's it," said the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, at the time.
This confrontation was repeated yesterday when the increase of the SMI to 1,080 euros was announced, and Garamendi complained that the business community is being "unfairly treated", adding that they always work positively and that they are the ones who create wealth and employment. “And we are never going to give it up, even if it is said that we are against the welfare state. We are in favor of it and we are the architects of making this work”, said Garamendi.
The Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, responded to this protest by businessmen of feeling mistreated, recalling that the Government "overturned the best social protection mechanism" during the pandemic to save companies and workers. "The policy that the Government of Spain deployed with everyone's taxes has served to save more than 550,000 companies, which if they had not done so, would have seen their deaths," said Díaz, giving ideological reasons to the critics. These are words that he spoke at the press conference of the Council of Ministers, in which he stated that the increase in the SMI "is not just another piece of information, it is a variable that allows people to change their lives", adding that it has a key impact on child poverty, life expectancy and mental health.
With the decision taken yesterday, the Executive meets its objective of placing the SMI this year at 60% of the average salary, a commitment that appears in the program of the Government coalition and that has led to a successive series of increases until reaching the SMI from 735 euros in 2018 to 1,080 in 2023.
This year's 8% increase falls short of what most European countries have adopted to deal with runaway inflation. However, if the last five years are examined, the situation is different. The 47% increase in the SMI in Spain is the largest among the large European countries, above Germany and France, for example.
