This is a trade union concession to the administration of the Frente de Todos without major costs for the CGT: the greater weight of the variation of the minimum salary falls on the Government itself for its direct transfer to the value of assistance to the unemployed. The so-called “supplementary social salary” paid by most plans is equivalent to half of the Minimum salary, vital and movil defined by the Council. Currently the formal income floor, which governs an estimated universe of 300,000 workers not covered by collective agreements, is 47,850 pesos for a full-time employee.
How much would the Minimum Wage go up?
The reasoning shared by the Minister of Labor, Claudio Moroni, and the leadership of the CGT is that if the central office should take to today’s meeting of the Council for Employment, Productivity and the Minimum, Vital and Mobile Salary, a proposal adjusted to the expected evolution of prices the salary floor would have to rise to almost 63 thousand pesos, or to $70 thousand if the calculation base was the April increase. Although that figure is even below the more than 100 thousand pesos that a family demands to cover a basic basket of poverty, Labor technicians warn that in its essence the minimum wage is intended to satisfy that need. but for a single worker without family charge. Another element that pays the cautious criteria of CGT and the labor portfolio.
An increase in line with the forecast of 90% inflation would require the State to immediately inject funds of magnitude to swell the value of social plans, which is at odds with the austerity imposed by the agreement with the International Monetary Fund that Sergio Massa promised to respect. But it can also be a headache for the more traditional sectors of the CGT. The “fats” of the large service unions, such as Commerce and Health, represent vast sectors of workers with low average salary scales compared to industry and transport. And the nominality of a Council of the Salary thus raised could appear to them as a horizon too distant for their own affiliates.
parity
What trade unionist with his own weight would want to endorse in a discussion that hardly involves the private sector a salary increase that his employer counterpart would not sign in a regular joint venture? It is the question that in recent years – to the extent that the Salary Council lost relevance in companies and gained it in social policy – led the more traditional leadership of the CGT to maintain cautious positions in each negotiation of the minimum. An example of that conservatism was given by Commerce last week when, instead of stretching the 59.5% increase agreed last April with the commercial chambers, it opted to advance the last installment of the escalation to August without still altering the end number.
The Government, for its part, despite having promised once again that this year income must beat inflation, is going through a moment of tension with a good part of the social organizations in which the value of the plans weighs. That is where the current incarnation of ruling Peronism, as happened during the Kirchner administrations, generally prefers to protect for the Executive the power to unilaterally increase social plans without giving that medal to the 32 members of the Salary Council.
The Labor debate will be the prelude to discussions that are pending between unions, businessmen and the Government since Massa took office. With the “small table” of the CGT, the Minister of Economy discussed the alternative of an official measure to raise salaries and encountered resistance until a non-remunerated bonus was proposed, for the only time and without impact on joint negotiations. That remedy and the activation of more joint tranches until the end of the year was until last week the strongest option.
Source: Ambito
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