The Government agrees with CCOO and UGT a salary increase of 9.5% for civil servants between 2022 and 2024

CSIF has rejected the Treasury proposal as it is considered insufficient

MADRID, 3 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Government, CCOO and UGT have agreed this Monday a salary increase for civil servants of 9.5%, distributed between 2022 and 2024, which has been rejected by CSIF, also present at the negotiating table, for considering it insufficient to address the loss of purchasing power of public employees.

The Ministry of Finance and Public Administration has confirmed, through a statement, that "the General Negotiation Table of the Public Administration has today approved the proposal of the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration to improve the remuneration of public employees".

"With the pact reached today, public employees recover the labor rights that were cut in 2012 and the essential elements that must make up an Administration for the 21st century are strengthened," adds the Treasury statement.

The portfolio headed by María Jesús Montero presented its salary and labor proposal to the three unions last Thursday and gave them until Monday to receive their final answers.

UGT already expressed after that meeting its support for the offer of the portfolio directed by María Jesús Montero, and this was ratified by its decision-making bodies on Friday. In the meetings this Monday, both in the morning and in the afternoon, the union has stressed to the Executive its support for this salary increase for public employees.

The secretary of Union Action of UGT Public Services, Isabel Araque, has confirmed the pact with the Executive after the meeting this afternoon.

"Those of us who have endorsed and ratified this salary increase are the same unions that this morning at the social dialogue table we have said that it is ratified within our union organizations," Araque told the media.

UGT has stressed that "it supports this agreement from consistency, realism and responsibility", so that some three million public employees "can alleviate the effect of inflation on their economy."

CCOO has also transferred this morning to the Ministry its ratification of the agreement, as reported by its coordinator of the Public Area, Humberto Muñoz, through a video.

"All this is conditioned to a correct relationship in the approval, in the coming weeks, of that agreement in other very important matters that accompany the salary and that have to do with the recovery of certain cuts from previous governments", he has expressed.

However, CCOO has acknowledged in a statement that, despite the approval of the organization, the salary increase is still "insufficient."

CSIF, which from the beginning demanded a double-digit wage increase, this morning called on the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration to improve its offer at the afternoon meeting. The Government has maintained its proposal of 9.5% between 2022 and 2024 and the president of CSIF, Miguel Borra, has given his definitive rejection.

"We express our absolute rejection of the salary offer that the Government has transferred to us. Public employees are going to lose purchasing power again. From CSIF we are not going to endorse with our signature an agreement that from minute zero implies losing purchasing power again" , Borra told the media this afternoon.

CSIF considers that the increase presented by the Treasury is not 9.5%, but 6%, since officials have already had a 2% increase in their payroll this year. The rest of the increase corresponds to an additional 1.5% that will depend on variables such as the CPI or GDP growth of 5.9% in 2023, something that the union sees as "very difficult".

Public employees will receive this 2022 an additional increase of 1.5% "to compensate for inflation", as the Treasury points out in its press release. This percentage will be added to the increase of 2% approved in the General State Budgets (PGE) of 2022.

The Montero portfolio explains that this additional increase is consolidated and, therefore, the 2023 increase will be applied on a larger basis.

In 2023, public remuneration will rise by 2.5% and may be increased by up to one additional point depending on variables linked to the CPI and nominal GDP. Civil servants will receive 0.5% more if the sum of the Harmonized CPI for 2022 and the forward Harmonized CPI for September 2023 exceeds 6%.

The other variable, also 0.5%, will be applied if the nominal GDP equals or exceeds that estimated in the macroeconomic table that accompanies the 2023 PGE.

In 2024, public salaries will rise another 2%, with an additional 0.5% depending on the change in the harmonized CPI.

The Treasury specifies that the fixed salary increase during the 2022-2024 period is 8%, with the possibility of rising to 9.5% depending on various variables contemplated in the review clauses.

In addition, remember that the salary revaluation could reach 9.8%, since the salary increase of each year is consolidated and, therefore, the increase of each year is made on the increased salary of the previous year.

The Government and the unions will continue working "to reach a broader agreement" that includes "the reforms committed to in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR)".

The agreement between the Treasury and the Civil Service unions also includes the elimination of the limitations that prevent the negotiation and implementation of an ordinary 35-hour day in the Public Administrations, the full application of the professional classification of article 76 of the Consolidated Text of the Basic Statute of the Public Employee (Trebep) and the repeal of the cuts of Royal Decree Law 20/2012.

Likewise, it refers to the limitation of the replacement rate, the implementation of equality measures, the union negotiation of the digitization and modernization of Public Administrations, and the negotiation of the attraction and retention of talent in Public Administrations.