While waiting for the new labor agreement to be signed that strains relations between unions and employers in the tile sector, the Pamesa Cerámica business group takes the lead. "For us, social peace is important," said Fernando Roig, president of the company, yesterday, who acknowledged that he does not like the subsidies - in reference to European aid to ceramics, which the company renounces - nor the mobilizations. : "I am an enemy of both subsidies and strikes," he declared yesterday during the 2023 results press conference.
The company, Roig explained, has made the decision to apply the increase "waiting for the agreement of the employers' association, Ascer, to be signed." The measure affects its entire workforce, 2,786 workers, and involves updating salaries by 3.1% (CPI for 2023), in addition to paying the arrears accrued from last year on this month's payroll to everyone. its employees belonging to the Collective Agreement of the Tile, Pavement and Ceramic Tiles Industry Sector of the Valencian Community.
In this regard, the businessman defended that it is necessary to reach an agreement and gave as an example the agreement that has been closed in the group, which concerns about two hundred employees, and which he said is "much better than that of ASCER."
This pact is for the years 2023, 2024 and 2025 because "we must have social peace, and seek agreements," the businessman insisted. He even defended that "the company is not going to be more or less profitable due to these salary increases, that is why we have decided that the employees will collect all the arrears for 2023." He explained that "it is necessary for our workers to be calm."
The blockage in the negotiations of the collective agreement of the sector, fundamental in the economy of Castellón, left last Friday, March 1, a follow-up of 9% of the workers in the morning shift, while it stood at 7.5% in the morning shift, 10.2% in the afternoon shift, and 7.2% in the night shift during the day of February 28. These are figures from Ascer, which regrets the "total absence of negotiating will." The employers' association put on the table an offer of a salary increase and payment of arrears with effect from January 1 that, according to details, would avoid economic losses for both companies and workers as a result of the strikes.
For the unions, last week's strikes were "a success." After the first day of strike last Wednesday, February 28, the calling entities, UGT-PV and CCOO-PV, aimed at a follow-up of 80% and 90%, respectively. Its objective is to demand a 10% increase in three years, 4%, 3% and 3% for the years 2023, 2024 and 2025, plus a 1% salary review based on the CPI, which guarantees the no loss of purchasing power. On the 15th there will be meetings in the unions in which they will decide whether to call new strikes at the end of the month or in April. That is as long as the employers do not call them beforehand to sit down to negotiate again.
