THE METALWORKING INDUSTRY AGREES TO A 2% WAGE INCREASE UNTIL 2023

It was finally possible. The 6,000 workers in the Spanish metalworking industry, which includes the manufacture of cans and aerosols and other products, in addition to its related industries, have ratified an agreement detailing the terms of that inflation shield.

In this way, the can makers open the way by accepting a system that compensates in 2023 a possible loss of purchasing power for their workers in the event that, at the end of that period, inflation ‘eats’ the agreed 6% increase, at a rate of 2% per year. Thus, the next wage rate already includes a 4% increase; the result of adding 2% in 2021, the first year of the agreement, and 2% in 2022.

In 2023, workers will receive the same proportion. At the end of the year, they will compare this increase with the evolution of prices over the three-year period. And in the event that the “real CPI” is higher, a clause will be activated to compensate 80% of the difference between the rise in prices and the rise in wages.

The pact between the AME employers’ association and the unions will be applied throughout Spain. In this regard, the UGT union has urged employers to renew the so-called AENC (Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining), and thus mitigate the conflict that the high inflation environment is creating in the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements, such as the metal sector in the Bay of Cadiz.

The union has proposed a 5% wage increase for 2022, after the CPI ended last year at 6.5% year-on-year, while the wage increase agreed in the collective bargaining agreement is barely 1.5%.

For its part, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) has proposed the signing of a long-term agreement, which would make it possible to postpone compensation for inflation to the end of the period as included in the ratified agreement.

With a turnover of 2 billion, the Spanish metalworking industry, which employs 6,000 workers in some thirty companies of varying sizes, is among the four most powerful in Europe. Finally, this agreement has also regulated other aspects of work, which have recently been legislated, such as teleworking and the recording of working hours.