With the motto “Raise wages, lower prices, distribute benefits”, the unions focused on the difference in the distribution of wealth and the need to fight for decent and quality employment. The key, they pointed out, is to know why wealth rises without an equivalent growth in wages.
“Rarely is a slogan so simple and so concrete,” summed up Unai Sordo, CCOO general secretary, who warned that if an agreement is not reached to raise wages in the negotiation of the agreements, there will be mobilizations. The ideal, he pointed out, would be to do it with a large state agreement in collective bargaining, but if it does not arrive, agreement will be made by agreement. CEOE, he said, must decide “if he prefers to do it from the conflict.”
His UGT counterpart, Pepe Álvarez, claimed the need to consolidate everything achieved in recent months, such as the Rider law or the pension agreement. “Going back to updating pensions with the CPI is extremely important,” he explained before referring to other problems such as housing. All this, in an electoral context -first, local, and there were not a few references to the government of the Community of Madrid- and negotiations. Salaries, lamented Álvarez, reflect how wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer people: “Business profits are improving.”
Regarding the salary negotiation, he warned the employer that either there is an agreement or there will be “conflict”. “You have to be aware that either we are capable of reaching an agreement or the conflict will be of a general nature,” she warned. He also qualified that it was not, yes, a threat, but the reflection of “a reality”.
Álvarez, after remembering the protests in France, later addressed CEOE once again to say that “it is known how the protests begin, but not how they end.”
Six government ministers plan to attend different demonstrations this Monday organized by the CCOO and UGT, under the slogan ‘Raise wages, lower prices, distribute benefits’ as a reason for May Day.
Specifically, the demonstration in Madrid was attended by the Second Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz; the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero; the Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, and the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero.
During her speech, Yolanda Díaz celebrated the successes achieved in these four years, among which she highlighted some of her workhorses, such as the increase in the minimum wage. “It is essential to raise wages in our country,” she asserted, because the median salary in Spain is 21,000 euros, which means 1,500 euros in 14 payments. “They don’t allow us to live with dignity,” she said, in most of the country’s cities. In a sense, she appealed to the bosses, whom she asked to be “at the height of the circumstances.”
The vice president recalled that it is the last May 1 of this legislature, in which “week after week” the working conditions of workers have improved, with milestones such as the Rider law or the labor reform, which has achieved “something that seemed impossible”, to reduce temporality by 17 points: “It is possible, we have demonstrated it hand in hand with the social agents”. Despite this, she recalled that a lot of work must be done on public temporary employment and called for not allowing these temporary rates in the Administration. “It can and should be done,” Diaz said.
Díaz, on the other hand, opened the door to reducing work hours. “The time has come to change that working day that has been with us for a century,” he said. It should be done without salary reduction and including in the debate a reorganization of society and respect for care and free time. “The time has come to talk about free time so that we can have dignified lives.”
The Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, was the second representative of the Executive to address the media and she also did so with a memory of the work done by the Government to protect workers with a “strong social shield.” After deploying it, she explained that she must limit mortgages and food prices: “These are two tasks that the Government cannot ignore before the legislature ends.”
Alberto Garzón, Minister of Consumption, also made reference to the labor reform, but, in his case, from the point of view of the “paradigm change” that it has entailed: now, he assured, it is understood that these problems must be resolved from the rise in wages, not since their fall. Like Díaz, he also spoke of “a new way of understanding work” with more free time and conciliation. Regarding price increases, he appealed for a better redistribution of benefits: “What you have to do is moderate benefits and raise wages.”
Rita Maestre and Mónica García also participated in the event, to which all political groups were invited, with an intervention with electoral overtones. Maestre asserted that she wants to bring to Madrid “the impulse of the labor reform” and promote the municipal minimum wage. Garcia, for her part, explained that “jobs cannot be the shredders of mental health.” “We could avoid a third of the depressions that exist in our country with decent wages and decent jobs.”
The unions have called demonstrations in more than 70 cities in Spain, in a context of tension with the employers due to the stagnation of the negotiation of the V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining, according to Europa Press.
The UGT secretary, Pepe Álvarez, UGT pointed out last week, at the press conference to present the act, that the call for so many demonstrations in the country is “significant information about the importance” that the unions give to this date ” claim”.
For Sordo, this year’s motto, ‘Raise wages, lower prices, distribute benefits’, which, in the opinion of Unai Sordo, cannot be “more concrete” or “synthesize more the demands of the unions”.
The CCOO general secretary indicated that this May 1st is “very close” to the beginning of a “transcendental political cycle for Spain”, with the regional and municipal elections on May 28th.
For this reason, he asked that this May 1 be a day “of balance”, of the advances in labor and pension material that have been achieved in this legislature, with the protection of 18 million incomes, among pensioners, beneficiaries of the Salary Interprofessional Minimum (SMI) and beneficiaries of salary increases by agreement, among others.
The arrival of this May 1st also announces the end of the term that the unions gave to the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) to reach an agreement on the V AENC.
The CCOO and UGT warn of an increase in mobilizations in the second part of the year if there is no progress in the AENC, and they will take advantage of this May 1st so that the employers feel “the breath of the country’s streets demanding that they put an end to greed, with the usury that business profits represent, in some cases,” as Álvarez said last week.
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