Employers and unions finalize an agreement to raise wages by 4% in 2023 and 3% in 2024 and 2025

The parties still do not consider it closed, although they have convened their management bodies next Monday in anticipation that it can be reached

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CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme finalize an agreement to recommend salary increases of around 4% in 2023 and 3% for both 2024 and 2025, with a salary guarantee clause that would be activated based on the evolution of inflation and which could imply an additional rise of up to 1%, as the SER chain has advanced this Friday and they have confirmed to Europa Press in sources of the negotiation.

The final agreement for what would be the V Interconfederal Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) is not yet closed, so these figures could be modified, according to Europa Press from the same sources.

Unions and employers, meeting this Friday, continue to discuss the fringes of the agreement. In any case, and in anticipation that they can close a final preliminary agreement, the social agents have summoned their management bodies for next Monday, according to the sources consulted.

The AENC is a text in which unions and employers collect recommendations for their negotiators of collective agreements, which usually include both a salary path and other matters related to employment, for example issues related to hiring.

The president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, has been saying for a few days that the agreement with the unions is possible and asking the negotiators for discretion and all this between appeals to the employers both by the Government and by the CCOO and UGT to close an agreement that raise wages in Spain and allow the rise in prices to be cushioned in the pockets of families.

The second vice-president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, yesterday urged the social agents to close a salary agreement this month, statements that later received a response from Garamendi asking that they not interfere in a negotiation that is the exclusive responsibility of unions and employers.

The proposal that the unions presented to CEOE and Cepyme included salary increases for the period 2022-2024, although the agreement finalized by the parties covers the period 2023-2025.

Specifically, the CCOO and UGT proposed to employers initial increases of 5% for 2022, 4.5% for 2023 and 3.75% for 2024, with the inclusion of a mixed salary review clause that would address both the maintenance of the purchasing power of wages and the economic situation of companies, measured by the evolution of their profit margin.

Thus, the CCOO and UGT proposed to the employers that an additional increase be added to the initial salary increases proposed for each year of the 2022-2024 period (5%, 4.5% and 3.75%) due to the deviation from inflation. in each year of the agreement.

In addition, they claimed that said additional salary increase, which would be set through the review clause, be linked to the information obtained through the Economic Information System for Collective Bargaining (Sienc) so that the recovery of the purchasing power of the wages were related to the economic evolution of the sectors through “reliable data”.

The unions had asked the Government that, if there was no agreement with CEOE, it would establish a minimum contribution in Corporate Tax of 15% or 20% of total benefits, an approach that CEOE did not like at all at the time.

The employers did not officially submit a counter offer to the unions, but were open to negotiating an agreement.

The parties could not achieve this in 2022, given that the high levels of inflation, with figures in double digits, made wage clauses unacceptable for employers to compensate workers for the sharp rise in prices.

CCOO and UGT then orchestrated a mobilization campaign under the slogan ‘Salary or conflict’ in order to get employers to agree to negotiate salary increases. That same message was the one they launched on May 1 during the International Labor Day demonstration.