The climate of understanding and agreement between unions and employers in Catalonia, which lasted since the pandemic pacts, has been abruptly broken with the interprofessional agreement of Catalonia (AIC). The AIC is a consensual text that pursues a translation in Catalonia of the collective bargaining agreement agreed for the whole of Spain.
CC.OO. and the UGT assured yesterday that they “consider the negotiations broken” because Foment “rejects the agreement reached by the presidencies of the two employers and the general secretaries of the two unions”. Sources of Development declined to comment on this 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 Catalan collective bargaining agreement, which is the “maximum exponent of the Catalan framework of relations labor”.
In the proposed agreement, the increase agreed in the Spanish area of ​​10% over three years is assumed: an increase of 4% this year and 3% in 2024 and 2025. Therefore , the point of disagreement is not the salary increase, which is accepted by the parties, but other issues of application of the agreements in Catalonia that CC.OO. and the UGT want to explain on Monday.
Sources consulted explained that, of the 50 points, Foment only rejects the one that refers to the application of regional agreements over state ones. Union sources said that “it is not just a single matter” and added that it is not respected that “the normative agreement is of general effectiveness to all agreements and for all workers”. Among these topics under discussion is the “digital disconnection, including teleworking and the digital transformation of companies or the development of the European framework agreement”, union sources added.
The AIC is not mandatory, but it is a guide for the negotiators of the collective agreements to agree on sectoral, regional agreements or within each company.
The two unions explained yesterday in a statement that the “Interprofessional Agreement of Catalonia has expired since December 2020”. The union organizations added that “we have had 52 meetings of the negotiation commissions and a huge job to build a text to strengthen and modernize the labor relations framework”.
