“The only thing we have proposed is that people comply with the agreements.” That has been the first public assessment of the president of the Spanish employers’ association, Antonio Garamendi, after the CEOE that he heads proposed yesterday an increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) of 3% for 2024 and the same for the following year.
For these calculations, employers take as reference the increases provided for in the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) signed on May 10 by social agents and transfer them to the SMI.
“What we are saying is that people comply with those commitments, which means 3% (by 2024) plus 3% (in 2025),” he said. With these increases, the SMI would first go from the current 1,080 euros to 1,112 (32 euros more) and then rise to 1,145 euros per month a year later.
From Zaragoza, where this Thursday he is attending the M23 Sustainable Mobility Forum, Garamendi also took the opportunity to ask the State to commit to “updating (the conditions) of public procurement.” He was thus referring to the unsuccessful claim that the CEOE has been holding for some time to modify the price review regulations in public sector contracting contracts to impact the increase in the SMI in execution contracts, a claim that was already reflected in the AENC.
“It cannot be that salaries are rising in companies to which the only thing they are doing is applying costs, where many are in losses and, yet, the State does not apply that margin of salaries in public contracts,” he pointed.
Along these lines, he assured that it makes “little sense” for the Government to set a path for them “when it then does not comply.” To do this, he gave the example of temporary employment, which has dropped in private companies from 24% to 15%, “while the State continues to have 30%.”
Garamendi also made reference to another long-standing request from the CEOE to establish a regime of deductions applicable to the agricultural sector, with a 20% reduction on the business fee for common contingencies, which would be added to the incentives already in force. “The field is having problems, and it is not worth going up and up and up, because it is drowning,” he said.
In addition, he pointed out the need to “start thinking about the territories,” since average salaries have “little to do” with each other.
Before attending the event, Garamendi also participated in the meeting of the CEOE Aragón Executive. In addition to the SMI, there they addressed other issues such as absenteeism from work or the concerns generated by the pacts of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, with the independentists.
