The employer unanimously approves the V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) which includes salary increases of 10% between now and 2025, after finalizing the agreement with union representatives over the weekend. Therefore, the increases will be 4% in 2023, 3% in 2024 and another 3% for 2025. Another 1% could be added to this increase thanks to the annual review clause.
On Friday it was made public that the unions had closed a preliminary agreement after more than a year of talks they seemed to be stuck. CCOO and UGT issued an ultimatum in March where they asked salary increases of 5% for 2022, 4.5% for 2023 and 3.75% for 2024. Since then, the negotiations have been carried out in strict secrecy. At the end of last week, an appeal was made to the caution and he made sure that there were many points to outline during the weekend, which seem to have been able to close.
The main objective of this wage increase is remunerate the loss of purchasing power that households have suffered due to the increase in the prices of basic goods and services.
Salary increase 2023: who does it affect?
This salary increase affects workers and workers who are in the labor market under the collective agreement. In Spain, more than 10 million people are registered under this agreement. This is more than 50% of the millions of Social Security affiliates.
Despite this rise, the AENC does not have the obligation to comply with this improvement of the agreement. It will be all the negotiators of the collective agreements who must study the particular situation of their field to determine the salary increase.
In the first 3 months of 2023 have signed and registered a total of 171 collective agreements, 112 from companies and 59 from a higher level than the company. Of the 171, 33 correspond to new bargaining units. Having only data from the first quarter, the number of agreements signed does not yet provide relevant information about the pace of collective bargaining, nor can we know for sure who exactly can benefit. Currently, there are companies that are negotiating their agreements on their own, but many have already started them.
What is the Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining?
The AENC is an important instrument for the orientation of collective bargaining for the vast majority of the salaried population. Thus, it intends to guarantee, through the salary increase, a boost to the recovery of consumption, and, therefore, of internal demand and economic activity.
This agreement aims to put an end to the growing job insecuritypromoting stability when contracting and the use of instruments of negotiated internal flexibility against unfair dismissal. Thus, the V AENC promotes the creation of new jobs, with special emphasis on young people.
In short, this agreement establishes that if, at the end of 2023, the year-on-year CPI exceeds 4%, an increase of 1% will be applied from January 2024. We must not forget that it serves as a roadmap for negotiating a collective agreement.