Álvarez (UGT) assures that there has never been a negotiating table on the maximum contribution bases

Sordo justifies the increase in the salary of the members of the Government and says that the important thing is that the SMI increases to 1,100 euros

MADRID, 7 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The general secretary of UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has contradicted this Friday the version of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) and has assured that there has never been a negotiating table with the Government to deal with the maximum contribution bases of pensions.

"There is no specific open table to raise, in a Budget law, the contribution base. There is a table in which the breakouts are under discussion, but not to negotiate the ordinary rise, which has never been consulted," he said. Álvarez in a rally together with CCOO before the CEOE to demand fair wage increases for workers.

Álvarez considers that this increase in the maximum contribution bases to 8.6%, included in the draft law of the General State Budgets (PGE) of 2023, responds to the increase in pensions for the next year, in accordance with the CPI, estimated at 8.5%.

"If pensions go up, the contribution bases have to go up to be able to pay pensions", said the general secretary of the UGT, and recalled that the employers signed the agreement to revalue pensions according to the CPI.

However, Álvarez has acknowledged that they would have liked the Government to have consulted them, not only on this issue but also on the rise from 50% to 60% of the unemployment benefit after six months. "We found out at the time the PGE project was presented," he admitted.

The PGE of 2023 also contemplate a salary increase of 4% for the Government. The secretary general of the CCOO, Unai Sordo, also present at the demonstration, pointed out that "politics in this country must be suitably paid", and has avoided "entering into an absolutely demagogic debate". "Any manager of an SME earns considerably more than the president of the Government", he has expressed.

For Sordo, the problem of inflation cannot be solved through generational confrontation, between the public and private sectors, or between the salaries of the Government and that of the opposition.

"The problem is that companies are passing on energy costs and raw materials to basic products in the shopping basket to improve their surpluses," he stressed.

In his opinion, the important thing is that the Government guarantees the rise of the Minimum Interprofessional Salary (SMI) up to 1,100 euros and not so much if Pedro Sánchez "raises his salary by 3.5% or 4%".

For his part, the general secretary of the UGT has considered it "profoundly unfair" to criticize the executive's salaries. "I think that politics in our country has to be paid according to European standards and, in that sense, Spain is far away," he added.

Like Sordo, Álvarez believes that "the key moment" for the Government to demonstrate its "consistency or its great inconsistency" with the negotiation of the SMI and its rise to 1,100 euros.