Unions announce mobilizations for the fall

The unions are preparing the ground for a hot autumn because of the blocked salary negotiations.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
23 August 2022 Tuesday 23:36
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Unions announce mobilizations for the fall

The unions are preparing the ground for a hot autumn because of the blocked salary negotiations. With unleashed inflation and a disagreement with the employers to include salary review clauses in the agreements, the conflict seems assured. The leaders in Catalonia of the CC.OO., Javier Pacheco, and the UGT, Camil Ros, yesterday predicted "big demonstrations" in September and October.

On Monday, it was the general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, who chose as a reference the strong protests in the United Kingdom, both in Felixstowe, the country's largest freight port, and in the railway sector and the London underground, to warn that "they are a prelude to what is going to happen in the whole of the European continent and in Spain".

The course starts difficult. On the one hand, prices continue to skyrocket and, on the other hand, growth prospects continue to decline; on the other hand, the employer's president, Antonio Garamendi, who faces elections in November, is not here to show flexibility. In this context, the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) has to be negotiated, which sets the reference for the agreements and which before the summer was stalled by the application of the salary review clauses. In terms of increases, 8% in three years can satisfy both unions and employers, but the former demand these guarantee clauses and the latter reject them outright.

From the bosses, they deny that they can move in this field. They see it easier to accept a higher salary increase this year, for example, but not to submit to a condition such as prices, which would cause great uncertainty. "We will not accept clauses linked to inflation," they point out in the CEOE.

For its part, the Government is limited to making an appeal to employers and unions to agree on the salary increase, but without going into detail because, they say, it is a matter of collective bargaining.

Another complex area will be the rise in the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI). The Government maintains the commitment to increase it to 60% of the average salary at the end of the legislature. In principle, this would mean going from 1,000 euros per month to 1,049, which is the high band of what the experts determined a year ago. However, on September 2, the same experts meet again to update this figure. UGT claims an increase to 1,100 euros. In the CEOE they do not pronounce at the moment, but the precedent of the last increase gives clues of what can happen. At that time, the Government and the unions agreed, and the employers distanced themselves from the consensus.

"In the SMI we have made an unprecedented effort that is helping Spanish families have better purchasing power," said the minister spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, recalling that it has increased by 36% since 2019.

Employer sources emphasize that the increase in the SMI is the exclusive responsibility of the Government, which only has to consult the social agents. In this case, they see a maneuver by the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, to transmute a simple consultation into a dialogue to reach an agreement.