Álvarez (UGT): "Businessmen do not raise wages when they earn a lot or when they earn little"

JAEN, June 13. (EUROPE PRESS) -

The general secretary of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has considered that "businessmen cannot be silent when they earn a lot, complain when they earn little and not raise workers' wages when they earn a lot or when they earn little".

This has been indicated to journalists before participating in Jaén in a consultative assembly of delegates to analyze the impact of the labor reform and how to face the pending demands, entitled 'Labor reform and economic growth'.

Together with the general secretary of the UGT in Andalusia, Carmen Castilla, and her counterpart in the province of Jaén, Manuel Salazar, she has shown solidarity in the first place with the workers of the 'contact center' sector and with those of the metal industry in Cantabria, who continue on strike.

Álvarez has pointed out that "Spain has a very serious salary problem", which has been "partially alleviated" with the rise in the minimum interprofessional salary (SMI). However, he has indicated that the situation caused by the increase in the CPI forces to "redouble" the efforts of the unions and collective agreements.

"Therefore, the CEOE has two alternatives: either it sits down to seriously negotiate an agreement with the union organizations that helps unblock all the collective agreements that are open in our country or the conflict will be served," he said.

He has given as an example that "today it is Cantabria", whose employers have demanded "that they sit down to negotiate in a serious way". After pointing out that he had been warned, he stressed that the conflict "could have been resolved with a general agreement that would facilitate the negotiation of collective agreements."

"It has not been done because of the closure of the bosses", criticized the union leader, not without emphasizing the need for workers to gain purchasing power "and that it begins to be a reality.

In this sense, he commented that "not long ago the oil agreement was being discussed in Jaén and the businessmen were complaining about the margins they had". Margins that today, in his opinion, "even allow reviewing the agreement" signed.

"I want to say that employers cannot be silent when they earn a lot, complain when they earn little and not raise the wages of the workers neither when they earn a lot nor when they earn little. We have to raise wages in a general way in our country and that is what The European Union is recommended to us, it is the best way to improve the lives of citizens, but at the same time also to generate activity in the country", he assured.

The general secretary of the UGT-A, for her part, has referred to the holding of assemblies to report throughout Andalusia on the labor reform and "make known everything that has been achieved in these last two years of the pandemic."

In this regard, he has assessed that it is "a labor regulation that allows the working class to recover rights", a point at which he added that "Europe already said that Spain had two fundamental problems, the high unemployment rate and temporary work" .

"Almost 40 percent of the contracts that are made today in Andalusia, according to unemployment data for the month of May, are indefinite, our goal is to be able to reach 90 percent. This is one of the proposals that we have told you political parties, this would prevent many young people from having to leave their land", he said.