CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme are finalizing an agreement to recommend salary increases of around 4% in 2023 and 3% for both 2024 and 2025, with a salary guarantee clause that would be activated depending on the evolution of inflation and could imply an additional increase of up to 1%, as reported by the SER chain on Friday and confirmed to Europa Press by negotiation sources.

The definitive agreement for what would be the V Interconfederal Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) is not yet closed, so these figures could be subject to modifications, according to the same sources.

Unions and employers, who met on Friday, continue to discuss the details of the agreement. In any case, and in anticipation of reaching a final pre-agreement, the social agents have called their management bodies for next monday, as reported by the sources consulted.

The AENC is a text in which unions and employers collect recommendations for their collective bargaining negotiators, in which they usually include both a salary path and other matters related to employment, such as issues related to hiring.

The CEOE's president, Antonio Garamendi, has been saying for a few days that an agreement with the unions is possible and urging negotiators to be discreet, all of it with appeals to the employer not only from the government but also from CCOO and UGT to close an agreement that raises wages in Spain and allows for the dampening of the increase in prices in the pockets of families.

The Second Vice-President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, yesterday urged social agents to close a salary agreement this month, statements that were later responded to by Garamendi, who asked her not to interfere in a negotiation that exclusively concerns unions and employers.

The proposal that the unions presented to the CEOE and Cepyme included salary increases for the period 2022-2024, although the agreement being finalized by the parties covers the period 2023-2025.

Specifically, CCOO and UGT proposed to employers initial increases of 5% for 2022, 4.5% for 2023 and 3.75% for 2024, with the inclusion of a mixed salary review clause that would take into account both the maintenance of the purchasing power of wages and the economic situation of companies, measured by the evolution of their profit margin.

Thus, CCOO and UGT proposed to employers that to the initial proposed salary increases for each year of the 2022-2024 period (5%, 4.5% and 3.75%), an additional increase would be added for the deviation of inflation in each of the years of the agreement through the review clause.

In addition, they demanded that such additional salary increase, which would be fixed through the review clause, be linked to the information obtained through the Economic Information System for Collective Bargaining (Sienc), so that the recovery of the purchasing power of wages was related to the economic evolution of the sectors through "a reliable data".

The unions had asked the government that, if there was no agreement with CEOE, it establish a minimum contribution in Corporate Income Tax of 15% or 20% on total profits, a proposal that CEOE did not like at the time.

The employers did not officially present a counter-offer to the unions, but they showed themselves open to negotiating an agreement.

The parties were unable to achieve it in 2022, given that the high levels of inflation, with double-digit figures, made salary clauses to compensate workers for the sharp rise in prices unacceptable to employers.

CCOO and UGT then orchestrated a campaign of mobilizations under the slogan "Salary or Conflict" in order to get employers to agree to salary increases. That same message was the one they launched last May 1st during the International Workers' Day demonstration.