MADRID, 25 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -
The president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi, has stated that, today, with inflation like the current one, establish a "homogeneous" recommendation for all economic sectors on how much wages should rise " It would sink the economy."
"The unions may be interested in this, but it is sinking the economy and the companies themselves," warned the business leader in statements to the SER chain collected by Europa Press.
Thus, the leader of the CEOE has advocated negotiating salaries sector by sector and company by company, because it is not the same, he stressed, an energy company than a hairdresser or a bar, for example.
"Inflation affects us all. It also affects small businesses that have to pay their electricity bills and the reality is that they don't. 98% of the Spanish business fabric are SMEs and they have less than 10 workers and that is the reality," he argued.
Garamendi has insisted that the collective bargaining agreement "is nothing more than a recommendation and has not always been signed" and has indicated that what the unions are asking for in order to close this agreement is a salary revision clause indexed to inflation.
"What there is is what there is and we are not saying that there will not be compensation at the end of the year", assured the business leader, who has denied that the CEOE has left the negotiating table with the CCOO and the UGT, against to the "mantra" repeated by some that it has, including the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz.
"She is repeating over and over again that we have gotten up from the table when she does not sit down and does not have to be, because she is bipartite. When she enters to assess or say what needs to be done at that table, she is interfering in something that does not it's up to him", criticized Garamendi, who, in any case, has claimed to have a "good personal harmony" both with Díaz and with the leaders of the CCOO and UGT, Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez, respectively.
The leader of the employers' association has assured that, although there is no pact of agreements in force, collective agreements continue to be signed "little by little", at a rate that usually occurs in any crisis such as the current one.
In addition, he has denied that the lack of a collective bargaining agreement with the unions has anything to do with the upcoming CEOE elections, where Garamendi is running for re-election. "This has nothing to do with it (...) If we could reach an agreement, we would sign it. If it is good for Spain, we would do it," he argued.
Garamendi has also criticized that the Government is reducing what it calls an income pact to the collective bargaining agreement between unions and employers when in reality it should be much more than that.
"We would love it to be like the Moncloa Pacts. We would have to talk to more people, the entire political class, and more things, such as pensions, civil servants, business margins, everything. But calling an income pact only the private party is to cheat a bit. It is to change the name of the national collective bargaining agreement", he added.
On the other hand, the leader of the CEOE has defended his words about the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whom he has praised for his management in Galicia. "I make this reflection because political disqualification is not good. The people who are in government deserve as much respect as the leader of the main opposition party. It is essential to value institutional loyalty. We must value the class politics because disqualifying on the street is easy and that's not good. Feijóo is a serious person as far as I know him", he added.
