Unions and employers renounce to agree on the salary increase for this year

It is the chronicle of a death foretold: that of the negotiation of the V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC). There will be no salary pact for this year, precisely when it was most needed as a result of skyrocketing inflation that has taken prices to the highest levels of more than three decades ago and puts the economy of a good part of the workers on the ropes, especially those with the lowest incomes.

«The trade unions and business organizations negotiating the V AENC consider the negotiation process closed for this year». This was announced this Thursday by the CC OO after the last meeting that was held with the aim, without success, of highlighting a negotiation that everything foreshadowed would not come to fruition.

The organization led by Unai Sordo considers it broken and any type of negotiation on collective agreements for this year were resounding and speak of "insurmountable differences", alluding to the salary review clauses, which have become an insurmountable obstacle. However, from UGT they maintained a slightly softer position and although they admitted that the negotiations on salary increases have ended, they made it clear that there are other issues that can be negotiated and even opened the door to resume the dialogue later, perhaps at the end of the year, when inflation may have been contained. "Nothing has been broken for UGT," according to sources from this union, who urged to see how the negotiations that are open on different agreements are closed.

Nor does the CEOE negotiation consider it broken, who acknowledged that "the positions are still very far between the parties and the agreement does not seem possible at the moment", but they were not as firm in the shipwreck of the income pact as CC OO. The employers, in any case, will submit all these issues for consultation in the internal organs of the organization and pointed out that in the event that an agreement with the unions is not possible, they will formulate "a document of recommendations for collective bargaining."

Because the shipwreck of an income pact does not mean that workers' wages will not rise this year. No, the AENC is just a recommendation made by unions and employers on how much they consider wages should be raised, although it is very strong, but in any case, the last word is held by the representatives of the companies in the negotiation of each agreement. Therefore, now the works council will be in charge of going, company by company or sector by sector, negotiating the new conditions of the workers without a roadmap.