CCOO will ask the Government to increase the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) by around 5% by 2025, which would place this minimum income at around 1,191 euros per month for fourteen payments, as confirmed this Tuesday Europe Press in union sources.
CCOO Secretary General Unai Sordo said in an interview with Current worksof the Huffington Postthat the SMI must increase in 2025 in line with the growth of average salarieswhich would result in an increase of around 5%.
“What we think is that we must guarantee that the idea of the European Social Charter according to which the SMI represents 60% of the average salary is maintained. So, if we understand that more or less we are already close to these 60%, It is reasonable for the SMI to increase in roughly the same proportion as average wages. and, according to the latest National Accounts data, in the second quarter of 2024 the increase was a little higher, 5.1% or 5.2%,” he said in the aforementioned interview.
According to National Accounting data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) at the end of September, the average remuneration per full-time equivalent position increased 5.2% year-on-year in the second quarter.
Avoid retroactive increases
Sordo believes that the government will open the table for social dialogue once the one on reducing working hours has been completed. “In any case, I think that if it’s not this week, It is in November that we must approach this negotiation (of the SMI)”, declared the union leader, who believes that the increase in the SMI should already be applied to the first payroll of 2025 and avoid what happened in other years, when it was agreed in the year but with retroactive effects from January 1.
The SMI increased by 5% this year, going from 1,080 euros per month for fourteen payments in 2023 to 1,134 euros. A further 5% increase by 2025 would leave it at around 1,191 euros per month.
He 5% increase by 2024 This is the result of the agreement concluded between the Ministry of Labor and CCOO and UGT, without the assistance of the professional organizations CEOE and Cepymewho decided not to support it because their demands for indexation of the SMI to public markets and the introduction of bonuses for the rural sector were not met.
Since the start of the increase in the SMI, this minimum income has been increased by 54% (398 euros more).
Will rise “with or without agreement”
The Second Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, announced this Monday in Galicia that she would soon convene the commission of experts to raise the SMI. Díaz has already clarified on several occasions that the SMI would increase “with or without a social agreement”, even if he considers it preferable to do so with an agreement. Although it has increased by 54% since the government of Pedro Sánchez, the minister said that with the current amount of SMI “we cannot live.”
“With 1,134 euros (per month) you cannot live in Madrid, nor in Vigo, nor in A Coruña, nor in Murcia, nor in Cartagena, nor in Andalusia, nor anywhere else. You cannot live. Therefore , The strategy of the Ministry of Labor is to continue to increase the minimum wage, subject to a social agreement. (…) We will continue to do this whether there is a deal or not“, emphasized Díaz last April, during his appearance before the Senate Labor Committee.
According to the minister, the increase in the SMI, which affects some 2.5 million people not covered by collective agreements, contributed to reducing the wage gap between men and women by 25% and to “reducing” the gap between the workers who earn the most and those who earn the most. those who earn a lower salary.
