Workers with a review clause drop to 23%
MADRID, 15 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The collective agreements signed this year included an average salary increase of 4.27% until September, above the interannual inflation of September (3.5%) and in line with the guidelines set by unions and employers in the Interconfederal Negotiation Agreement Collective (AENC).
This agreement recommends salary increases of 4% in 2023 and 3% for both 2024 and 2025, with a salary review clause that, in the event of deviation from inflation, could imply additional increases of up to 1% for each of the years of the agreement (2023-2025).
According to data from the Ministry of Labor collected by Europa Press, most of the agreements registered until September were signed in previous years, although they will take effect in 2023.
Specifically, in the first nine months of the year a total of 3,110 collective agreements with economic effects in 2023 had been registered, of which only 801 have been signed this year, with an average salary increase of 4.27%. The rest of the agreements, 2,309, were signed in previous years and include a much lower average salary increase of 3.09%.
The 3,110 agreements registered until September provided protection to more than 9.5 million workers.
If the agreements signed this year are added to those signed in previous years but with effects on 2023, the average salary increase was 3.41% until September, a figure higher than that registered in August (3.38%) and slightly below of the CPI, whose interannual rate stood at 3.5% in the ninth month of the year.
The average salary increase included in the agreements registered until September (3.41%) has shortened the gap with the guidelines set by CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme in the AENC, as it is less than six tenths of the salary increase of 4% recommended by social agents for this year.
According to Labor statistics, most of the agreements registered until September do not have a salary review clause to avoid losses of purchasing power. Specifically, of the 3,110 agreements counted, only 14.4% (449) had a salary guarantee clause and of them, 311 contemplate that it be applied retroactively.
The agreements that include a review clause affect 2.19 million workers of the slightly more than 9.5 million covered by the agreements registered until September, equivalent to 23% of the total.
Thus, the majority of workers (three out of four) lack safeguard clauses in their collective agreements. Although the number of workers protected with this instrument has increased compared to that in December 2022 (21.08%), it has decreased compared to the figure from the previous month, August, when it stood at 23.5%.
Of the total agreements registered until September, 2,254 were company agreements, with effects on 554,804 workers and an average salary increase of 3.16%, while 856 were sectoral agreements and covered more than 8.9 million workers, with a average salary increase of 3.43%.
The average working day agreed upon in the agreement was 1,754.4 hours per year per worker until September (1,699 hours in company agreements and 1,757.8 in higher-level agreements).
Of the 3,110 agreements registered until September, a total of 78, equivalent to 2.5%, contemplated a salary freeze, while 40.3% of the agreements, four out of ten, included a salary increase of more than 3 %, the average being 4.96%.
41.1% of the agreements recorded in the first nine months of the year involve average salary increases ranging from 1% to 2.5%. The statistics only include one agreement with a salary cut, of 3.75%, with effects on 78 workers
The Labor statistics also reveal that until September, 485 non-applications of agreements were registered, above the 411 in the same period of 2022 (18%).
These ‘downloads’ affected a total of 21,464 workers, compared to the 16,352 affected in the first nine months of 2022, which represents an increase of 31.2%. The ‘removal’ of agreements involves the review of working conditions in companies.
