The unions and the Spanish employers have sealed an agreement that provides for wage increases of 4% this year and 3% in 2024 and 2025 to partially offset the runaway price increases in recent months.
This “agreement for employment and collective bargaining”, which affects workers dependent on collective agreements, was ratified this Monday by the UGT union and by the CEOE and Cepyme employers, they announced on their respective websites. The other major union, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), must approve it in turn on Tuesday.
It foresees, in detail, a wage increase of 4% in 2023 followed by two successive increases of 3% in 2024 and 2025. An additional increase of 1% is planned if inflation returns to very high levels, said UGT in its Press release. Inflation stood at 4.1% in April, more than a year after reaching record levels of more than 10% over the summer.
“Social peace”
However, this framework agreement will not lead to an automatic and general increase in wages in the country, but will serve as the basis for collective bargaining in the different branches. It is “a starting point to allow a more equitable distribution of wealth”, welcomes UGT in its press release. This agreement was well received by the leftist government.
As soon as an agreement in principle was announced this Friday, the communist Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, “thanked the social partners for this very important agreement aimed at protecting wages.” “The union and employer organizations are once again at the level of our country,” she said on her Twitter account.
“There is more social peace in Spain than in most of the countries of the European Union because there is a social dialogue that the Government has reestablished” since the return of the left to power in 2018, the socialist said for his departures the same day. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
Source: BFM TV
