Agreement wages rise 2.42% until May, more than six points below the IPC

One in four workers with an agreement has salary review clauses

MADRID, 10 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The wages agreed in the agreement rose by an average of 2.42% until May, a figure slightly higher than the figure for April (2.40%), but more than six points lower than the CPI for May, which stood at 8.7 %, according to data extracted from the collective bargaining statistics of the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy.

This salary increase is below the 3.6% increase agreed between the Government and the unions for the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI) and is somewhat more in line with the guidelines set out in the Interconfederal Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining ( AENC) 2018-2020, which proposed wage increases of around 2% plus one percentage point linked to concepts such as productivity, business results and absenteeism.

This AENC has not been able to be renewed for 2022 due to the existing differences regarding the salary review clause, inalienable for unions and unacceptable for employers due to high levels of inflation. Both parties have not closed the door to negotiating an AENC for years to come, but not for this year.

The unions, which yesterday began a campaign of mobilizations in defense of the improvement of wages, demanded from employers a rise of 3.5% for this year, with review clauses so that workers do not lose purchasing power in the face of high levels of inflation. For its part, the proposal that the CEOE put on the table included a salary increase of 3.5% for 2022, but without a review clause.

At the moment, with the data up to May, the wage increase agreed upon in the agreement is more than one point below that proposed in this negotiation by both the CCOO and UGT (3.5%) and the CEOE, but in the latter case excluding the guarantee clause.

Most of the agreements registered until May in the Labor statistics were signed in previous years, even if they take effect in 2022.

Specifically, until May a total of 2,198 collective agreements with economic effects had been registered for that period, of which only 215 have been signed this year, with an average wage increase of 2.49%. The rest, 1,983, were signed in previous years and include a slightly lower average salary increase of 2.42%.

The 2,198 agreements registered until May gave protection to just over 5.8 million workers.

According to Labor statistics, most of the agreements registered until May do not have a salary review clause to avoid losses in purchasing power. Specifically, of the 2,198 agreements recorded, only 15% (330) had a salary guarantee clause and of these, 248 contemplate that it be applied retroactively.

The agreements that include a review clause affect just over 1.49 million workers of the 5.8 million covered by the agreements registered until May, the equivalent of 25.7% of the total. Thus, the bulk of workers (three out of four) lack safeguard clauses in their collective agreements. This figure has been reduced compared to previous months, since in March it exceeded 29%.

The Bank of Spain recently warned of the upward trend in wage guarantee clauses in collective bargaining in the first months of the year and of the growing risk that this entailed in the face of experiencing second-round effects on inflation. In recent years, the percentage of workers protected by this clause was less than 20%. Now it is at 25.7%, but it has come close to 30%.

Of the total agreements registered in the first five months of the year, 1,684 were company agreements, with effects on 374,500 workers and an average wage increase of 2.63%, while 514 were sectoral agreements and covered 5.4 million workers , with an average wage increase of 2.41%.

Until May, the average working day agreed upon in an agreement stood at 1,724.4 hours per year per worker (1,709.6 hours in company agreements and 1,725.4 in higher level agreements).

Of the 2,198 agreements registered in the first five months, a total of 98, equivalent to 4.4%, contemplated a salary freeze, while 29.9% of the agreements included a salary increase of more than 3%, the average of 5.44%.

59% of the agreements move in average wage increases ranging from 0.5% to 2.5%. The agreements registered until May with wage increases of more than 2% reach 42.8% of the total. The statistics do not include any agreement with a salary cut, unlike 2021, when two agreements of this nature were contemplated.

The Labor statistics also reveal that in the first five months of the year, 266 non-applications of agreements were registered, 11.9% less than in the same period of 2021.

However, these 'drops' affected more workers, a total of 10,782, compared to the 8,999 affected until May of the previous year (19.8%). The 'pick up' of the agreements supposes the revision of the labor conditions in the companies.