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Salaries agreed between employers and unions rose on average 1.5%; substantially below the 6.7% with which the CPI closed the year
The outburst inflation devoured the tenuous rise of salaries agreed between employers and unions in the new agreements signed during 2021. The collective agreements signed leave a balance of average increase in wages for the 1,47%, In front of a IPC that closed the year in the 6,7% (its eleventh consecutive month on the rise), according to the latest data from the Ministry of Labor updated this Monday. Wages lose purchasing power in 2021 and they face 2022 with collective bargaining partially blocked by this inflationary spiral and by the lack of agreement at the highest level between the CEOE, CCOO Y UGT, which have pending for a year to address a new ‘agreement of agreements’ to guide collective bargaining.
2021 was a negative year for most of the pockets of the workers covered by a collective agreement, since, on average, the agreed wages rose less than the shopping basket rose. Some workers lost more and others less. The new state agreement of the meat industry, which agreed to an increase of 3% for 2021, that the agreement of the hostelry Catalan, who agreed to a table freeze. Of the renewed agreements, 15.7% of the workers suffered directly a salary freeze, that is, the increase for 2021 was 0%. Approximately half of the increases ranged between 0.01 and 1.5% and only 6.4% saw their salaries rise above 3%.
The management of salaries and the renewal of agreements has required a precarious balance during this past year between employers and unions that has not always been possible. The inflationary spiral has pressured the centrals to demand higher wage increases, while companies have shielded themselves from the various unknowns that weigh on the economy – COVID, irregular deployment of European funds, lack of raw materials in certain sectors, rising costs of supplies etc – to push renovations down. What has caused that the coverage of collective bargaining has decreased during 2021. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Labor, there are currently 7.7 million workers covered by an agreement in force, on a salaried population of 15.3 million people.
No shared roadmap
The lack of a State Collective Bargaining Agreement (AENC) does not contribute to giving tools to sectorial and provincial negotiators to agree, union by union or territory by territory, new salary conditions. This kind of ‘bargaining agreement’ is a bipartite agreement between employers and unions that gives recommendations on salary ranges and others derived from collective bargaining. The last AENC (2018-2020) has expired for a year and incorporated issues such as a salary range of between 2 and 3%, as well as the commitment of companies not to close any agreement with professional categories with salaries below 1,000 euros per month (or 14,000 euros gross per year).
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The social agents, after reaching a consensus on the new labor reform, face the negotiation of the new AENC as one of their main subjects. For now, according to sources consulted from both employers and unions, there are no ongoing contacts and the centrals pressure the employer to reopen the tables. Already on December 16, CCOO and UGT convened a concentration at the CEOE headquarters in Madrid to reopen at the highest level the melon of how salaries should evolve in the post-covid labor market. “If CEOE does not enter to negotiate, I predict a difficult winter for them from the social point of view,” warns a union leader consulted. As background music they have both central banks like to government, who insist on underlining the transitory nature of the current inflation data and urge them not to transfer them directly to collective bargaining, in order to avoid fueling a second inflationary wave.
New rules of the game after the labor reform
Collective bargaining enters 2022 with new rules of the game after the labour reform. Two of the aspects that the unions fought the most was to recover the ultractivity indefinite agreement and return to the prevalence of the sectoral agreements over those of the company. Both are issues in which the PP labor reform reduced strength to the centrals and now they are recovering with the new rule of the coalition government.
With regard to indefinite ultra-activity, this ensures that the agreement does not decline once its validity has expired and urges the parties to negotiate to reach an agreement that both workers and the company end up accepting. To this end, compulsory mediation mechanisms have been strengthened since the Management.
And with regard to the prevalence of sectoral agreements, the practice so far extended among the multi-service companies that created their own specifications to devalue wages. It is not a widespread practice throughout the economy, as evidenced by the data updated this Monday by the Ministry of Labor, which puts those covered by a company agreement at less than half a million workers. However, in sectors such as housekeeping, cleaning or security guards, it was something general and pushed wages down.
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