Sordo (CCOO) says that the employers “have no will” to negotiate an income pact

The salary increase “is absolutely necessary in terms of social justice and economic efficiency”, defends the general secretary of CCOO The union proposes a rise of around 4% and 4.5% for this year, 3.5% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2024The salary review clauses are necessary because, otherwise, “it can cause a reduction in purchasing power of up to 15%”, says SordoThe secretary general of the CCOO, Unai Sordo, has assured this Thursday that business organizations “have removed themselves from any co-responsibility scenario” and have “no will” to negotiate an income agreement. A situation that is going to lead to mobilizations to “stress the negotiation of the agreements, which is going to become more conflictive to the extent that the public sees that its purchasing power is being reduced.” The wage increase “is absolutely necessary in terms of social justice and economic efficiency”, said Sordo, who has opted for “reasonable” wage increases, not referenced to the current CPI, accompanied by wage review clauses between 2022 and 2024. The union proposes a rise of around 4 % and 4.5% for this year, 3.5% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2024. This was confirmed by Sordo during his speech in Pamplona at the Ser Navarra Forum, where he highlighted that the current situation of “uncertainty” generated by the invasion of Ukraine leads to a debate on “how the costs of this inflation are distributed among salary income, business surpluses and common resources managed by public administrations”. Although he has recognized that the increase in costs has an impact on companies, he has stressed that they have the ability to pass it on to prices with the aim of “safeguarding those business surpluses”. He has pointed out that the increase in inflation “affects the whole of Western societies and is going to lead to a slowdown in economic growth”. He has assured that Spain “is very far from recession”, but the economic slowdown “is guaranteed” from next year. In this scenario of uncertainty, he has criticized the “stingy” attitude of business organizations in salary negotiations that “have been erased from any co-responsibility scenario.” He has specified that CCOO does not propose to increase wages according to the CPI, something that “in generalized form is not realistic”, but rather “reasonable initial increases” accompanied by a commitment to “recover purchasing power” between 2022 and 2024. In this sense, he has highlighted the need for wage review clauses in collective agreements because, otherwise, Otherwise, “it can cause a reduction in purchasing power of up to 15%”. “Spain cannot again allow itself to come out of a crisis by extreme wage and social inequalities”, he stressed. For the union leader, it is “perfectly possible to foresee that, sooner or later, the war situation will be redirected and a certain normality will be recovered in the supply chain”. Period in which “the structure of costs that companies bear today will bend downwards.” Another risk, he pointed out, is that this context is “reinforcing” the “risks of implosion” in the EU through “formulas of extreme right”, which are based on “the insecurity of millions of citizens” and which can “jeopardize a European project that had been reinforced in the pandemic”. A tax cut would be the “prelude to social cuts” On the other hand , the secretary general of CCOO has criticized the “offensive with fiscal proposals” oriented, “not to take conjunctural measures”, but to “strengthen an anti-tax trap speech”, with measures to “deteriorate the country’s fiscal base”. A speech that aims to “avoid the debate” on the fiscal “lack of progressivity” in Spain and that, in turn, would cause a “very important deterioration of the macroeconomic picture that would be the prelude to social cuts.” In the face of this, he highlighted that the fiscal strategy of the “progressive governments” involves “not proposing a general reduction”, but rather a “temporary, very focused reduction” that “in any case must be compensated with fiscal measures on high income and capital” to “avoid a generalized reduction in collection.” “You cannot go for a generalized reduction in taxes,” remarked Sordo, who has indicated that the “recomposition of the social contract and an income pact should come” because the State “contains ” prices in “strategic sectors” such as energy and fuel, and for an “improvement in public income, a rise in wages and the protection of income through social benefits”.