Two years of skyrocketing inflation have bravely punished many workers whose wages have not risen, not even remotely, at the same rate.
Now that prices are rising more moderately, the wage increase agreed in the agreement is already around 3.5%, like the CPI . It has a lot to do with the impetus given to many negotiations by the agreement signed in May by the CEOE employer and the UGT and CCOO unions. The pact recommended raising wages by 4% this year and 3% in 2024. And they were cured by recommending a complementary 1% in case the CPI rose above these percentages.
As the secretary of Acció Sindical de Commissions Obreres, Cristina Torre, acknowledges, "in Catalonia more than half a million workers have already agreed on a salary above 4%".
"We still have approximately four hundred thousand people who still do not have their negotiation closed."
Sectors with the lowest wages are finding it harder to close deals. And to the construction workers in the demarcation of Barcelona, although they had signed an agreement in which salary increases were foreseen, now the sector management and the unions have not yet agreed on the revision of the tables and, therefore, the salary they have not been increased.
But on the other side there are the workers of the chemical companies . Three years ago they were far-sighted enough to accept 2% salary increases, but included a review clause. To give the companies a little more leeway, they decided that they would calculate the deviations at the end of the agreement. Now it's time to do the math and in January workers should find themselves with an 11% higher base salary.
Other agreements have chosen to do so from now on. Barcelona's ship consignment companies have set increases of 7.5% for three consecutive years . Due to the cumulative effect, by 2025 salaries should have risen by 24.7%.
Many challenges for the coming year
But as not all sectors, nor all companies have managed to recover part of the lost ground, the unions are already sharpening their strategies when negotiating .
As the head of UGT Trade Union Action, Núria Gilgado, says, wages must continue to rise because business profits have skyrocketed in the last two years: "We see the need for wages to continue to rise."
"When we talk about salary increases we have to talk about productivity, but we also have to talk about benefits and this is a variable that must enter into the negotiations"
But businessmen say that companies have also suffered from price increases , especially for electricity, gas and others. They also argue that wage increases should be linked to productivity, that is, to the fact of producing more and of better quality, with the same workers.
What will happen next year if the minimum wage is raised?
The general secretary of PIMEC, Josep Ginesta points out that next year's negotiations are full of uncertainties . He assures that if the Spanish government raises the minimum wage and reduces the weekly working day by law, the rules of the negotiation game will change.
"This will mean that many collective agreements will be below the minimum wage and, therefore, we will have to review them. This will cause us to have certain difficulties at the end of the year."
There are more and more workers with a salary that touches the interprofessional minimum wage and, therefore, every time it goes up, agreement negotiators have to start reviewing the affected categories.
The Spanish government has reiterated this week its intention to raise it again so that it approaches 60% of the average salary , as set out in the European Social Charter.
The CEOE has already shown its letter, it believes that the same increase recommended in general should be applied to the minimum wage. In other words, next year it should rise by 3% and reach 1,112 euros in 14 payments and they want the administrations to improve the services they have outsourced so that companies can raise the salary of the workers.
The unions have already said that we should start talking about, at least, 1,200 euros a month .
And if the working day is reduced?
The other major factor that will have a full impact on the negotiation of agreements will also be that of the 37.5-hour working week. Often the reduction of working hours has been used as a negotiation tool to compensate for lower wage increases or to achieve more flexibility.
According to Josep Ginesta, it will be another element: "There will be fewer working hours and we will have to study how we rebalance it internally with remuneration, how we rebalance it with productivity".
Some experts predict that having to raise minimum wages and reduce workweeks will cause many employers to use toppings as bargaining chips and end up reducing or eliminating them, which will be an indirect way of smoothing the hikes of salary.
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