The celebration of May Day was marked yesterday by a direct threat from the majority unions, UGT and CC.OO., to the CEOE employers to increase salaries within the framework of collective bargaining. If not, they plan strikes. In the mobilizations there was hardly any criticism of the work of the Government after having agreed on the labor reform, the pension reform or the increases in the SMI, so all the attacks focused on the employers.

This lack of reproaches to the Executive – which sent four ministers to the demonstration in Madrid, one to Barcelona and another to Puertollano – set up an atypical May Day compared to what used to be usual. Minutes before leading the first banner that paraded down Madrid’s Gran Vía, under the slogan “Raise wages, lower prices and distribute benefits”, the leader of CC.OO, Unai Sordo, warned that “if an agreement is not reached in In a very short period of time, we will call demonstrations in all sectors where the collective bargaining table is open and we will go on strike”. Together with him, the leader of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, left the responsibility of closing the V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC), frozen since last year and which should be a guide on how much wages have to go up. “We know how the mobilizations begin, but not how they end,” he assured, dropping the great conflict that has broken out in France against the policies of the Macron government. “We want transparency, to know where the benefits go and to know who is taking them maduritas”, claimed Álvarez.

The alleged high corporate profits were also the protagonists of the main interventions of all the ministers. “It is essential to raise wages. The motto is more appropriate than ever”, assured the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz. In her speech, she explained that the average salary in Spain is 21,000 euros. “You cannot live with dignity with this salary and while the business benefits are absolutely unbearable,” she lamented. The vice president went a step further and pointed out future objectives. “We want more free time to live with dignity and reduce the working day without reducing the salary.”

Along the same lines, María Jesús Montero, Minister of Finance, pointed out the need to “socialize” the “record profits of some business sectors”. The Minister of Commerce, Alberto Garzón, also charged against the businessmen and after describing their benefits as “abusive” called for “a paradigm shift.” For the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, “the legislature cannot be concluded with two outstanding issues that are so important for families and workers, such as limiting mortgages and food prices.”

In Barcelona, ​​Miquel Iceta, Minister of Culture, participated in the demonstration while Isabel Rodríguez, Minister of Territorial Policy, in Puertollano said that “we are at the end of a legislature in which progress has been made like never before in terms of rights and freedoms for Workers”,

The unions also put duties on politicians. Unai Sordo asked to raise the corporate tax if there is no agreement and Álvarez reminded SMEs and the self-employed that they are also affected. “Large companies are part of the chain of exploitation. It is the large corporations that keep the benefit of the large contracts and cut SMEs so much that it makes it difficult for them to even pay their salaries,” Álvarez pointed out.

From Barcelona, ​​the tone was the same, with criticism of businessmen, but not of the Government except for some comment on the “insufficient” Housing law. Javier Pacheco (CC.OO) and Camil Ros (UGT) took the opportunity to point out that mobilization sometimes gives results, as in the agreements reached with the Government. “It is necessary to distribute the wealth with the collective agreements”, Pacheco raised. “This is a May Day in which class unionism is shown to work,” said Ros.