Unions and employers have reached a pre-agreement for a salary increase in the next three years. It represents a total increase of 10% in three years, which would be divided into 4% this year and 3% both in 2024 and 2025.
It is an agreement that would have to be ratified on Monday by the addresses of CC.OO. UGT and CEOE. The employers have already officially convened their executive committee next Monday at noon. The news has been advanced by the chain Ser and La Vanguardia has confirmed it. For the review clauses, what is proposed is that if inflation in 2024 and 2025 is above 3%, the salary increase may go up one additional point, up to 4%.
At this moment, the negotiators are still meeting closing the last fringes, which largely focus on the guarantee clauses, to guarantee that the workers do not lose purchasing power, and which in this negotiation have been one of the most difficult elements with those to deal with.
If the agreement is finally closed, it will put an end to a long and complicated negotiation on the renewal of the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) that had been stranded for months and that focused the vindication of the unions on the recent May Day. The AENC is a recommendation that serves as a guide for all the agreements under negotiation, and was highly demanded by the unions that threatened, otherwise, with an escalation of mobilizations.
The pre-agreement falls short of the proposal formulated by the unions on March 1, when they proposed an increase of more than 13% in the 2022-24 period, and which was complemented by salary guarantee clauses based on both prices and the economic situation of the companies. For its part, the employers did not formulate any specific counterproposal, although it is true that informal conversations were held throughout this period.
During May Day, the unions demonstrated under the slogan “Raise wages, lower prices, distribute benefits”, and seeking to put pressure on employers to negotiate a wage increase. The objective of the unions is to seek to recover within a period of three years a good part of the purchasing power that workers have lost in the last year, with inflation skyrocketing and a much lower rise in wages. The moderation of prices that is being registered and that everything suggests that it will continue in the immediate future, is one of the elements that facilitates a negotiated solution between CC.OO. and the UGT on the one hand and the CEOE on the other.
