MADRID, 30 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -
The general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo, stressed this Thursday that the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) has to rise in 2024 above the CPI and do so in line with the rate at which average salaries increased in the second quarter (5, 2%).
"If average salaries in the second quarter of the year are rising to 5.2%, I think that is where the increase in the minimum wage for 2024 should go. That is going to be one of our proposals on the table and we will see if there is willingness to negotiate on the part of CEOE or how the Government is positioned, which until now has basically referred to the CPI," Sordo explained.
In statements to RNE reported by Europa Press, the union leader stated that "we must go beyond the CPI" and allow the SMI to gain purchasing power, "which is necessary, taking into account that such basic products as food from first necessity, they are growing even more.
On the day that negotiations begin between the Government, unions and employers for the increase in the SMI in 2024, Sordo has insisted that the CPI barrier must be overcome so that this minimum income is truly equivalent to 60% of the average salary, as stated in the European Social Charter and as the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has stated in his investiture speech.
"Right now the increase in the average salary per worker is growing at 5.2% in the second quarter of the year, according to what the Quarterly Labor Cost Survey tells us, and the salaries that we are agreeing to in a collective agreement are rising at 4.2% In our opinion, it is not worth raising the minimum wage by 3.7% or 3.8%, where inflation is right now," he emphasized.
Another reason that leads Sordo to request that the SMI rise above the CPI is the evolution of the prices of the basic products that make up the shopping basket, which are rising more than average inflation.
"The most extreme case," said the leader of CCOO, is that of food, although he stressed that there are other basic products whose price has increased. "Therefore, people who earn 1,080 euros per month in 14 payments per year, I think they need a salary increase that is above inflation and that is what we are going to propose at the (negotiation) table," the leader pointed out. union.
Regarding the proposal by CEOE and Cepyme to raise the SMI by 3% by 2024, Sordo has described it as "netly insufficient", but wanted to highlight that business owners have proposed, as a starting position, an increase in the minimum wage.
"Normally, when the negotiations on the interprofessional minimum wage have been addressed, the seven plagues of Egypt were announced. That the employers' association comes to the table, starting the proposed increase from 3%, is a good sign, although it seems insufficient to us" Sordo has indicated.
The union leader has agreed with CEOE and Cepyme regarding the need for Public Administrations to take into account the increase in the SMI in their public contracts.
"Sometimes bidding is done at very low prices, recklessly low, and this means that there are people who are practically collecting the SMI and that when the SMI is raised, that increase cannot then be passed on to the tenders, which is a mess," Sordo argued.
The leader of CCOO recalled that the Law on deindexation of the Spanish economy prevents that when an external service has been put out to tender, for example the cleaning of a ministry, any increase in costs, including labor costs, cannot be brought to the prices of the contest during the duration of that contract.
"We agree that these exceptions should be eliminated, because if not, there is no way to negotiate collective agreements for thousands and thousands of workers who are often women and who are trapped by this law that is of the times. of austericide," he denounced.
