On Thursday afternoon, the Generalitat and the ITV associations signed the salary equalization agreement for staff at those facilities. The agreement, first signed in May, has now received the necessary documentation to ensure insurance coverage and to guarantee compliance with its terms.
Although the PP had not implemented the plan due to a lack of legal coverage, a process to bring the service into public hands had already been agreed with the previous government. Unions had warned they would strike if the transition did not proceed.
Negotiations involved Sitval, the Valencian regional government, and unions UGT, CC OO, CSIF, and Intersindical Valenciana. The Valencian Government committed to advancing the requests of station employees, who number around a thousand, and this led to the postponement of the strike. On November 2, the parties scheduled the wage agreement signing.
After 25 years under private management, the service returned to the public system. Sitval, a public company with fixed and mobile ITV stations across the Valencian Community, employs about a thousand people. The salary equalization will take effect once Valencian authorities declare its validity. The agreement impacts roughly 10 percent of the workforce, according to Ministry of Industry sources cited by Efe, and these are the workers earning the lowest wages.
The agreement establishes minimum wage increases by category. It also commits to raising the lowest wages across all roles, from shift leaders and inspectors to managers and administrative assistants, with adjustments phased in over three years.
A deal that is overdue
The March agreement between Sitval and the workers—signed in May—sought to address wage gaps among employees in similar roles who came from different companies, with disparities as high as 40 percent in Alicante. It was intended to take effect on June 1 but was not implemented due to missing reports about scope and legal certainty, rendering it temporarily invalid.
In September, Sitval appointed a new general manager, Javier López Mora. Reports requested in that period will enable the signing of a renewed salary equalization agreement later in the day, with consultants in the area and Sitval’s board chairman, Nuria Montes, present.
From the unions’ viewpoint, CCOO stated that the new agreement will bring salary equalization for Sitval workers over the next four years, ensuring that employees across all stations receive the same pay for identical work.