Yesterday employers supported socialist candidate Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba?s proposal to renegotiate a salary agreement that establishes incremental salary gains from 2010 to 2012. Last Monday Rubalcaba urged social workers to talk about an income policy that includes moderation of salaries and benefit reinvestment in order to create jobs. And just yesterday the vice president of the CEOE and president of the CEIM, Arturo Fernández, affirmed that employers are ready to begin negotiations with union reprsentatives.
The salary agreement, signed in February of 2010, recommended a salary diminution of between 0.5-1%, from 1-2% in 2011 and from 1.5-2.5% in 2012. Further, this agreement would include a revisonary clause at the end of this cycle that makes companies compensate workers on a three-year increasing scale so that they do not lose purchasing power. That is to say, companies would be forced to take on significant labor expenditures when they are still facing tough economic constraints.
Candidate Rubalcaba explained that the salary objectives have become obsolete. ?The agreement was made based on situations from a long time ago, and these situations have changed drastically.? Employers share this opinion.
Nontheless, the fact that the issue is on the table again after discourse was fragmented in June and the federal government approved a collective bargaining negotiation without consensus is rather difficult.
And situation is complicated. Fernández reproached the federal government for not following through with their obligations to carry out reforms on collective bargaining. In fact, the government began a campaign against salary and working-hour restrictions, but in July it was strongly rebuked for not supporting Congress and failing to deliver on a promise to introduce a preamble in the agreement that would add recommendations to match salaries with productivity.
