The Vice President of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, is not going to back down a millimeter in the offensive undertaken with the rise in the minimum wage, the updating of the sectoral agreements -framed in the so-called income pact- and the negotiation of some expansive budgets to contain the effects of inflation in domestic economies, despite the reaction of its socialist partners in defense of the positions of the bosses.
This Friday he will personally preside over the meeting of the group of experts to request an update of the country’s average salary data that takes into account inflation, in order to adjust the calculation of the minimum wage increase that will be negotiated with the unions. And with the employers, if the CEOE finally agrees to sit down at the table of social dialogue. And he is also already preparing the hard battle for the last general budgets of the legislature, which should burden the government partners with political reasons before the upcoming electoral year.
The fire caused by his support for the union mobilizations in defense of the rise of the SMI and denouncing the blocking of the CEOE to the agreements was an avatar that, despite the attempt of various socialist ministers to appease the bosses, does not think get off. Among other reasons, because it was the UGT socialist union itself that shouted to the heavens with the CEOE’s blocking attitude regarding collective agreements. Deep down, in the Díaz team and in the government environment of United We Can, it is estimated that the CEOE has already changed its preferred ally, and it is understood that today it is working intensely for the victory of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the general elections, which discourages the interest of employers to reach agreements of any kind that continue to endorse the action of the Executive of Pedro Sánchez.
The union centrals interpret the sudden refusal of the CEOE, not only to reach agreements, but even to sit down to negotiate them, and in turn its blocking of sectoral agreements. Only 400 have been approved so far this year, compared to the usual more than 2,000 at this point in the year, according to the unions and the Labor Ministry. The situation this time is not one of a confrontation between employer and union proposals, but of a refusal by business organizations to legitimize the negotiations at the social dialogue table with their presence. Or at least, that’s how it is interpreted from Work.
For this reason, while the PSOE concentrates, on the one hand, on the transcendent European agenda for the semester and, on the other, in fighting with Núñez Feijóo to occupy the old central space as a party of order –hence the praise for the trajectory of the CEOE during the pandemic–, Díaz, while carrying out his citizen meetings with the Sumar project, will put all the emphasis on the effects of inflation and war on family economies and, very particularly, on preventing the rise in prices causes a devaluation of wages like the one that occurred, by other means, after the 2008 crisis, which made all the country’s employed workers 25% poorer on average.
This will also mean that Díaz and the rest of the United We Can ministers will press hard in the negotiation of the 2023 budgets, and although many headlines point to the commitment to increase defense spending as one of the main stumbling blocks, the battle is over. to hit with even greater intensity in other areas related to social spending, public investment and also the tax structure, in particular the contribution of large companies and large fortunes, who currently pay taxes below the average income of the worked. The advantage for Díaz of this political agenda is that, in addition, it unites the complex space of United We Can in a delicate moment of refoundation.
