The government urges social partners to reach a deal.
Officials report that talks between employers and unions are planned for Monday afternoon in a bid to settle the fees and terms of the current price crisis within the framework of the Labor and Collective Bargaining Agreement. Sources from the Prensa Ibérica group confirmed to EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA that both business associations and the unions are involved. Negotiations broke off last May because a mutual agreement could not be found. After ten months and eight days, representatives from labor, business, and public authorities will reconvene with the aim of steering the Labor and Collective Bargaining Agreement (AENC) toward renewal. The idea is to craft a framework that becomes the reference for sector-by-sector negotiations, providing common criteria and reducing the likelihood of strikes and disagreements.
Informal contacts in the preceding weeks yielded progress. The CEOE will meet with CCOO and UGT to discuss wage levels. In a move forward, the social partners disclosed their initial proposals to restart negotiations. The unions are seeking wage increases of at least 13.25 percent over the next three years, complemented by a set of bonuses tied to sector-specific performance and inflation. This starting point reflects the unions’ position and is expected to be echoed by employers on Monday, who have so far shown caution about tying wages strictly to price development, though they have not voiced an outright refusal.
Collective bargaining has operated without a single consensual anchor since 2021, guided by the balance of power between employers and workers in each sector. Last year highlighted disparities among unions, with some sectors feeling more marginalized as they reported lower wage growth. Estimates from CCOO de Catalunya suggest that 70 percent of workers who experienced the slowest wage growth were women.
The pandemic, followed by a sharp rise in prices, complicated efforts to renew the most recent AENC, which concluded in 2021. The CPI surged in tandem with the onset of the war in Ukraine, and many sectoral agreements since then have carried wage increases below inflation. As a result, 2022 ended with the greatest erosion of workers’ purchasing power since the mid-1980s when the labor department started compiling such figures. Current data show that the initial contracts signed in January 2023 posted an average salary increase of 2.8 percent, compared with a 5.9 percent CPI for the same period.
Economic authorities press for a timely settlement.
There is growing pressure on social intermediaries from the government to reactivate the AENC and to reach an agreement on how to distribute the costs associated with the price surge. Yolanda Díaz, the second vice president and minister of labor, has been coordinating with energy stakeholders and has criticized the CEOE’s stance on negotiations for weeks. She told reporters that unions advocate for the general interests of the country and called for higher wages.
Negotiations ceased in May of the previous year after parties concluded that a deal was unattainable at that time. The unions proposed a 3.5 percent salary increase for 2022, plus a salary review clause designed to automatically align the raise with inflation by year-end. Employers rejected this proposal, warning that it could imply an 8 percent increase in salaries during the first year of the contract.
There is now movement toward creating objective indicators to assess profit margins across different industries. The idea is straightforward: as profits rise, the corresponding share paid to employees would also rise, tying compensation more directly to company performance.
Negotiators set a two-month deadline to finalize the new AENC, with a target date at the start of May. If a consensus is not reached, there is a risk of escalating pressure on the government to adjust corporate taxation levels. At present, the government has not issued a final decision on this matter.