Employers and unions finalize the wage agreement, which could be imminent

MADRID, 5 May. (EUROPA PRESS) -

CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme were meeting at 3:00 p.m. to try to close a multi-year salary agreement, which some sources consulted by Europa Press see as "imminent", although not yet finalized.

In fact, according to negotiating sources, nothing is closed yet, although the management bodies of the social partners have already been called for next Monday.

On the table is a path of salary increases for the period 2023-2025 of 4% for 2023, 3% for 2024 and 3% for 2025, although both unions and employers have insisted to Europa Press that the negotiation is still open. Thus, these may not be the definitive figures.

The president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, has been saying for a few days that the agreement is possible and appealing to the discretion of the negotiators.

He also asked the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, yesterday not to interfere in a negotiation that is the exclusive responsibility of the social agents.

The proposal that the unions presented to CEOE and Cepyme included initial salary increases of 5% for 2022, 4.5% for 2023 and 3.75% for 2024, with the inclusion of a mixed salary review clause that addresses both the maintenance of the purchasing power of wages and the economic situation of companies, measured by the evolution of their profit margin.

In this way, the unions reformulated their initial salary proposal, introducing new criteria on the salary review clause, asking that it not only be linked to the evolution of prices, but also to the economic progress of the companies.

Thus, the CCOO and UGT proposed to the employers that an additional increase be added to the initial salary increases for each year of the 2022-2024 period (5%, 4.5% and 3.75%) due to the deviation from inflation. in each year of the agreement.

In addition, they claimed that said additional salary increase, which would be set through the review clause, be linked to the information obtained through the Economic Information System for Collective Bargaining (Sienc) so that the recovery of the purchasing power of the wages is related to the economic evolution of the sectors through "reliable data".

The unions had asked the Government that, if there was no agreement with CEOE, it would establish a minimum contribution in Corporate Tax of 15% or 20% of total benefits, an approach that CEOE did not like at all at the time.