UGT Y CCOO About 400 people gathered outside the headquarters in Madrid this Friday. Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) to alert the employer “conflict scenario” in 2023 If they do not sit back at the dialogue table of the Employment and Collective Bargaining Agreement (AENC), which has been frozen since the beginning of May.
The mobilization coincided with the World Decent Work Day. unions demand “salary justice” and an increase in wages that dampens the impact of inflation.
“We can’t say it’s going smoothly if wages don’t increase,” said the UGT general secretary during the speech. Pepe Alvarez.
UGT leader reminded that the preliminary data for September brought the CPI to 9% and wages increased by an average of 2.9%, so “good” wages cannot be mentioned for the economic situation.
“We would like to reiterate that in front of the employer’s headquarters, either there is a bargain or there is a conflict, it is either salaries or there is a conflict,” said the general secretary of the UGT.
CCOO Secretary General, deafit also envisioned a “worker conflict scenario” in 2023 due to the CEOE’s position on salary negotiations.
Sordo believes employers want to emerge from this crisis “through the door they always come out of”, with “a generalized impoverishment of the social majority” and “workers being paid by their wages and perhaps by their job position”. “.
CCOO general secretary, bosses already “put almost all their cards on the table” and they all show a “lack of shared responsibility for the progress of the country”.
“They want to protect their profits, their surpluses, their assets, their dividends… at the expense of supporting 17 million people with a fall in their real wages. For justice, we will not succumb to this scenario. Not for equality, but for economic efficiency,” stressed Sordo.
Contracts with a salary review clause
AENC negotiations broke down in May as the CEOE refused to accept salary review clauses demanded by the unions.
In the five months since then, CCOO and UGT maintain this status and also, They increased the salary negotiation range to around 4.5%.
“If it reopens, we’ll put the proposals back on the table. What we’re proposing to the CEOE is initial salary increases for 2022, 2023, and 2024. They should be around 4% or 4.5% by 2022, but it’s key to achieving a goal,” Sordo said. He said they have commitments to recover from the current loss of purchasing power. However, he clarified that specific figures for the increase would be negotiated at the table “when there is more than one thing blocked”.
Pepe Álvarez of UGT recalled: Meetings and meetings at companies will follow the concentration this Friday. “Accompany the bargaining workers” throughout the month will conclude with “a big demonstration in Madrid” on 3 November.
“This is not the end of anything, it is the point and the ensuing struggle that will continue until we get the employers to the negotiating table with offers and get out of the situation we are in. I don’t know, it may continue to maintain the situation that wages have in our country,” he added.
The UGT also claims that the Inter-Occupational Minimum Wage (SMI) was raised to 1100 euros as a “means that embarrasses employers and compels them to raise wages”.