The family businessmen raised their voices again yesterday to claim before the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, “a calm political climate” and a “quality democracy in which everyone has a place”. The new president of the Institut d’Empresa Familiar (IEF), Ignacio Rivera, was inaugurated as the new head of the body that brings together the country’s main family entrepreneurs asking the Executive to create the necessary conditions to expand “the framework of coexistence that has cost us so much to achieve and build”.
Rivera, who is the first executive of the Galician corporation Hijos de Rivera, the parent of Estrella Galicia, and who replaces Andrés Sendagorta at the head of the IEF, took advantage of the organization’s annual assembly, held at the Teatro Real in Madrid, to convey to Sánchez his “personal and institutional offer to make this country bigger”. He also highlighted that family businesses account for 25% of the national GDP and generate more than two million jobs.
Ignacio Rivera also recovered a common idea from the IEF’s argument, when he recalled that family companies are “companies with purposes” and “united in positive impact”. In this sense, he wanted to emphasize that, while a company that is not a family has an eye on capital gain, those represented at the Family Business Institute “we care about the people who make up our companies, our allies, the planet and of our origin”.
Sánchez, for his part, returned yesterday, after five years of absence, to an event organized by the family entrepreneurs. At the last events of the IEF, discrepancies with the economic policy of the Central Government were expressed. Yesterday the two sides met again in a different climate. The assembly applauded the president of the Spanish Government.
Sánchez’s speech focused on his appeal to employers. He asked them for help “to improve people’s lives”. Ten days after announcing that he would continue at the head of the presidency, the head of the Executive urged those present to raise workers’ wages, among other requests. “I would like to ask for your involvement to sustain this [economic] model, to continue raising the purchasing power of workers, to contribute together to slow down and adapt to the climate crisis; also to defend our democracy as the only system that is capable of uniting social justice with civil liberties and economic growth”, he stated in front of the audience.
Sánchez then referred to the entrepreneurs in the second person plural to make an explicit request: “Take advantage of the current bonanza you are having on your income statement to invest in your future as companies and in ours as a country “. And he asked: “Use the profits of this period to reward your investors and shareholders fairly, without a doubt, but also to modernize and strengthen the foundations of our productive fabric and also of our society.”
The head of the Executive twice encouraged employers to “improve the working conditions and wages of workers”. “We have a population full of talent”, but “if we want to compete on a global scale, we have to motivate it, reward it, pay better wages, strengthen training, make working hours more flexible and make work a better experience healthy and satisfying”, he added.
The president of the Spanish Government concluded that, if employers use the benefits to improve productivity and competitiveness, “this Government will know how to recognize this effort and will help you in everything it can”.
