• Public Function Montero rules out for now addressing the salary increase of civil servants and unfreezes teleworking a year later

  • Sánchez rent agreement links the salary increase of civil servants to the salary agreement of the private sector

Officials

do not want to hear about

the negotiations between employers and unions to share the burden that inflation is accumulating on the purchasing power of wages and the margins of companies being transferred to their negotiations, as Pedro Sánchez advanced yesterday, President of the goverment.

Sánchez framed the future negotiations to discuss the salary increase of 2.7 million civil servants

in the rent pact that he has proposed to employers and unions

.

Both parties have rejected government intervention to deal with the matter bilaterally.

Although the talks have not produced results, sources present at the negotiations indicate that the intention is to reach an agreement before the end of the month, but they clarify that there is no obligation to do so.

"Right now unions and businessmen are negotiating this rent agreement, where not only do we have to talk about salaries, we also have to talk about dividends, the distribution of profits by large companies, and based on that we will

see what is the evolution and the negotiation that is articulated with respect to public workers,

" said Sánchez in an interview on Antena 3.

To the civil servants' unions, which at that time were in a demonstration protesting "because of the health cuts suffered by medical staff and health centers in the different state civil servants' mutual societies", the fact that their negotiation with the Ministry Treasury is articulated "according to" the one that is under way

, they did not like it at all

.

"

The President of the Government is very poorly informed

about the situation of public employees and the mechanisms for negotiating our salaries, which depend on the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations. We have already requested a meeting with the minister [María Jesús Montero]. No you can steal the salary negotiation from the union representatives of the Public Function.

It is not democratic

, "says Miguel Borra, president of CSIF.

Borra affirms that Sánchez should know that "the public employees of this country have been contributing to the income pact since 2010 with a

loss of purchasing power of 12%

and they are already suffering cuts in the health benefits of their mutual insurance companies as a consequence of the lack financing from the government.

At the moment, public sector employees do not know how their salaries will face the challenge of inflation in the coming years.

In the General State Budgets (PGE) a rise of 2% is recognized which, as has happened with the payrolls of the private sector, has been amply overwhelmed by inflation.

The Bank of Spain, in its economic forecasts, forecasts an average inflation of 7.5% for this year -last March it rose to 9.8%-, a rate that will be reduced to 2% in 2023 and 1.6 % in 2024.

Thus, unions like CSIF demand "

a recovery of lost purchasing power in the medium term

", in addition to reinforcements in public services, especially in areas such as health, education, social services, social security, SEPE or labor inspection.

To do this, they unsuccessfully requested another meeting weeks ago with the Civil Service.

And all the union representatives of the civil servants demand a multiannual plan of increases, similar to the one that was agreed with the then minister, Cristóbal Montoro.

That agreement lasted until 2020, and subsequent salary increases have been decided unilaterally.

But, for now, the only thing they have received from the department that Montero directs is

the promise that the application of teleworking will be accelerated during the current month of April

, although it was initially announced for January and whose bases were already signed a year ago. with Miguel Iceta.

When it is developed, officials of the General State Administration (AGE) will be able to work remotely three days a week.

distant positions

Whether these demands of public employees can be included in the rent agreement that Sánchez expects and use the possible agreement between CEOE and Cepyme with CCOO and UGT as a guide is something that remains open.

The

negotiating positions of businessmen and workers were very far apart

before being interrupted last Easter.

If the basis of the agreement is to distribute the burden of inflation, there is no formal proposal to limit margins, but there

is a certain consensus that the salary reference figure is core inflation

, which is 3.4%, and discard the figure of the CPI.

Thus, the employer's proposal contemplates a salary increase of 3.5% for this year, 2.5% for 2023 and 2% for 2024, in line with the moderation of inflation that is expected for the next years.

The unions, for their part, demand a rise of 3.4% for 2022. and 2.5% in 2023 with 2% in 2024. At this point, the difference lies in the fact that for the representatives of the workers it is essential to set

clauses review at the end of each financial year

so that salaries do not lose purchasing power.

For businessmen, however, they are an obstacle to the agreement.

UGT has already indicated them as the reason for its claim on May 1, which gives an idea of ​​how close it is to an agreement in this regard.

But

at the negotiation tables there is margin

, or at least that is what the parties maintain.

Employers and unions know that they can find each other as long as, for example, the former are not committed to updating the inflation data at an extra pay rate and the latter to see how the distribution of the accumulated evolution of prices falls only on their roof.

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more