The National Court recognizes the salary increase of 6.5% for the workers of the Unit

The National Court estimates the demands presented by the Workers' Commissions and the UGT and recognizes that the wages of workers in the Dependency Care sector must be increased by 6.5%. This decision, which was opposed by the employers, will affect 6,000 companies and around 160,000 workers in day centers, residences, telecare and home help.

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The unions took to court the application of the state collective agreement for care of dependent people, which expired at the end of 2018 and has not been renewed because the social dialogue negotiations have been entrenched for four years. In a ruling issued in June 2022, the National High Court maintains that this agreement must continue to be applied.

In this way, the magistrates estimate the demand of the unions in which they required that the "retribution concepts for the year 2022 be increased in the amount corresponding to the percentage of the real consumer price index (CPI) of the year 2021, that is in 6.5%”.

For its part, the National Court has not taken into account the allegation of one of the employers, who assured that the agreement did not apply because its validity ended on the last day of 2018. For four years, both parties have not reached a consensus to renew the requested agreement. Therefore, the employers have maintained that they were facing a "conflict of interest". According to one of the representative platforms of the employers' association, the objective of the unions was "to influence the result of collective bargaining."

Given this argument, the Social Chamber points out that accepting these allegations would mean that "none of the parties affected by a conflict entrenched since 2018 would be entitled to obtain a judicial interpretation that, given the resistant lack of agreement, could unblock it."

In this sentence, the magistrates charge against the employers, which they accuse of a "plot poverty" that "does not stop surprising". “In the same way, the allegation that salaries should be increased by the same amount as the pensions of people cared for in these care services for dependent people is still a desire of the business community that is not supported by any legal argument of minimal consistency. ”, indicate the judges, who condemn the employers – Business Federation of Assistance to Dependency (FED), Federation of Residences and Care Services for the Elderly-Solidarity Sector (LARES) and Association of Dependency Services Companies (AESTE )—to pay a fine of 1,000 euros and to pay the fees of the lawyers of the claimant unions.

From CCOO they celebrate the ruling and regret that during these last four years of negotiations the employers have maintained an "intransigent position" that "has prevented any type of agreement from being reached, with the aggravating factor of the devastating consequences that have triggered the pandemic of Covid and the two years of wage freeze in which wages have been considerably impoverished.