MADRID, 17 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has accused this Monday the president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), Antonio Garamendi, of blocking collective bargaining and has added that the employers are inspired by the management made by the PP from the previous crisis, based on “massively lowering wages” and “causing poverty in the country.”
Díaz has stated that he is “very concerned” about the opposition of Garamendi and the employers’ association to the rise in the Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI) and about their “blocking” attitude in collective bargaining.
“This is very serious. It is blocking the negotiation of agreements, it is blocking the SMI, it is blocking a model of labor practices”, the Minister of Labor told the media after the breakfast at the New Economy Forum, in which she participated the Minister of Universities, Joan Subirats.
Despite Garamendi’s statements contrary to the rise in the SMI, Díaz has shown his confidence that the employers will sit down at the social dialogue table, which he will convene in December, once the expert committee delivers its conclusions on the SMI .
Díaz recalled that the calculations on the increase in the SMI were made with the salaries of 2018, so one of the committee’s mandates is to update it according to the salaries of 2022, so that the SMI remains at 60% of the average salary Spanish in 2023, as the Government promised.
“The committee of experts is working. They are going to conclude their tasks in the month of November, and in December I am going to convene the social dialogue table. I am going to listen to all the parties and, later, the Government, in accordance with article 27 of the Workers’ Statute, is going to take a position”, reported the head of Labor.
Article 27 of the Workers’ Statute establishes that the Executive, after consultation with the social agents, will set the SMI taking into account inflation, the national average productivity, the increase in labor participation in the national income and the general economic situation. .
Díaz has recalled that the final decision on updating the SMI and the result of the social dialogue table will not be known until December, and has warned that the agreements “can be tripartite or bipartite.”
