• Autumn work uphill for SMEs: the light and the rise in the SMI raise the pressure before exiting the crisis

  • SMI Pedro Sánchez announces the "immediate" rise in the minimum wage

The political course has started with controversy in the labor field on account of the

Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI)

. Government, employers and unions have shown this Wednesday a tension that had been growing in recent days and in which the President of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, has made his position clear: there will be an "immediate increase" in salaries this year despite the fact that the Entrepreneurs consider

that "this is not the time"

to do it.

This has been assured by the president of CEOE,

Antonio Garamendi

, who has explained that "this is not the time because we come from a horrible year and a half" due to the impact of the coronavirus and has warned that such a measure will have consequences in the labor market .

"The only thing he will do is get a job," he said in an interview on Telecinco.

In his understanding, this initiative by the Government does not have both an economic and a "political" meaning, referring to the tensions within the Executive itself, in which United We can for a long time to press for the SMI to be reviewed.

"We are talking about politics and what we are hearing is quite populist,

" Garamendi assured.

Unilateral decision

Pedro Sánchez's statements tip the balance towards one of the parties to the negotiation, something that until now the Government had avoided. The Executive does not need consensus with the social agents to decree or not a change in the SMI, that is, it could raise it unilaterally, but until now it had been betting on

maintaining the conciliatory tone

taking into account that in the coming weeks they will have to face also the negotiations on ERTEs and on possible changes to the labor reform.

The statements by Sánchez and Garamendi occurred minutes before the scheduled meeting between the Second Vice President of Labor,

Yolanda Díaz,

and the representatives of the social agents to address the matter began.

The SMI is now at 950 euros per month and the Government has committed to reaching 60% of the average salary in this legislature.

The unions demand that the Executive establish a new rise from this month and the UGT has even put a figure to that rise.

His Deputy Secretary General for Trade Union Policy, Mariano Hoya, has raised a rise of 25 euros, up to 975 euros gross per month for this year, and to negotiate the increases for 2022 and 2023 with the aim of reaching the marked commitment.

Hoya has taken this proposal to the social dialogue table that is held this Wednesday at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor to discuss the rise in the SMI of 2021, as he has advanced before the meeting in statements to RNE.

"The evolution of the CPI throughout the year recommends a general increase in wages. There is no reason not to increase it this year and to leave the rise on track for 2022 and 2023," he assured.

PP rejection

From the PP, however, they consider that it is not the moment and that the Executive "is mistaking the objective", in the words of the sector vice-secretary of the Popular Party,

Elvira Rodríguez.

"In Spain, we have a very serious employment problem, which is what we must solve. To me, the bombastic phrases of the minister saying that we have to restore justice are not worth me, what we have to give is employment to the Spanish who do not they have it (...). That is what we should work on and it should be the objective of recovery, "he said.

Rodríguez alluded to the report published by the Bank of Spain at the beginning of June on the impact of the increase in the SMI to justify the opposition of his party and added that the rise will reduce the competitiveness of companies, which "will solve it by destroying employment."

Companies, mainly small and medium-sized ones,

warn that a new rise in the SMI would add more pressure to their situation after Covid-19 and puts their future viability at risk.

Organizations such as the Federation of Autonomous ATA or experts such as the General Council of Economists (CGE) explain that an increase in the SMI would now mean raising the structural expenses that companies have to face, to which these weeks are added the increase in electricity, fuel and inflation.

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