The climate of understanding and pact between unions and employers in Catalonia that had lasted since the pandemic pacts has been abruptly broken with the interprofessional agreement of Catalonia (AIC). It is a consensual text that seeks a transfer to Catalonia of the collective bargaining agreement agreed for the whole of Spain.
CC.OO. and UGT have assured today that “the negotiations are considered broken” because “Foment del Treball Nacional rejects the agreement reached by the presidencies of the two employers’ associations and the general secretaries of the two unions.” Foment sources have declined to comment on the matter. The employers’ association Pimec, which is also part of the negotiations, regretted that “Foment has distanced itself from the Pre-agreement reached by the social agents in Catalonia in the negotiations of the Interprofessional Agreement of Catalonia (AIC), the Catalan agreement of agreements and the greatest exponent of the Marc Català of Labor Relations”.
The agreement proposal assumed the 10% increase agreed at the state level in three years: a 4% increase this year and 3% in 2024 and 2025. The point of disagreement is not the salary increase that is accepted by the parties but other issues of application of the agreements in Catalonia that CC.OO. and UGT want to explain on Monday.
The two unions have explained in a statement that the “Interprofessional Agreement of Catalonia has expired since December 2020”. The union organizations have ensured that “we have held 52 meetings of the negotiation commissions and an enormous amount of work to build a text to reinforce and modernize the labor relations framework in Catalonia, assuming the challenges of the digital and climate transformations of our time and incorporating a gender perspective and transversal to the negotiation of collective agreements”.
CC.OO. and UGT have added that “after a few days waiting for the organizations’ response to the commitments made by their highest representatives, Foment del Treball has announced that it does not accept the overall content of the agreement.”
Sources consulted have explained that of the 50 points, Foment only rejects the one that refers to an application of the regional agreements. Union sources said that “it is not only a single subject, it is that there was a commitment to normative matters, which means that these matters not only oblige the signatories to take it to all the agreements, as is usual in inter-professional agreements, but that what is agreed with a normative character is of general effectiveness to all the agreements and for all the working people”. Among these topics is the “digital disconnection including teleworking and the digital transformation of companies or the development of the European framework agreement”.
The AIC is not mandatory, but it is a very important guide for the negotiators of collective agreements to agree on sectoral, regional or company agreements.
