The conclave between unions, employers, the national State and provincial governments will take place this afternoon, first in commission, where the technical discussion will take place in search of raising a proposal for updating, and then in the ordinary plenary session of the Wage Councilto give way to the central debate.
The last meeting between the parties at the Labor Secretariat was at the end of April. On that occasion, no agreement was reached, as in the first call of the year, and The Government ended up defining a 15% increase in the minimum wage in two stages (April and May).
This way, Basic income went from $202,800 to $221,052 in April for monthly workers, while in May it reached $234,315.12. As for daily employees, the hourly wage increased from $1,014 to $1,105.26 in the fourth month of the year and to $1,171.58 in the fifth.
The minimum wage is still behind
At the current value, The minimum wage has 32.1% less purchasing power than it had in November of last year, since “nominal increases totaled 60.5% compared to November 2023, when in the same period inflation is projected to accumulate above 136%,” according to a report prepared by the Research and Training Center (CIFRA) of the Central de los Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA).
He also stated that so far this year, the Real minimum wage was 53.1% lower than in 2015 and is at the “lowest level of the last three decades.” In that sense, the report noted that “The value is lower even than that prevailing during most of the 1990s.”
In this regard, CIFRA said that “then, as now, the level was so low that this instrument had lost its role as a salary floor, as sought by a government that was striving for deregulation and flexibility in the labour market.”
The analysis also stated that “the historical decline is also evident in the Comparison of the minimum wage with the poverty and indigence lines“, indicating that “this salary would only be enough in July to buy 56.8% of the basic food basket that defines the poverty line for a typical family and 25.6% of the poverty basket, ratios comparable to those in force during the final crisis of convertibility in 2001/2002.”
Likewise, the CTA research area stressed that “if the loss of purchasing power of the minimum wage that occurred from the end of 2015 to date had not taken place, in the current month of July this salary would have been practically $540,000 and would have represented more than 143% on the basic food basket mentioned.”
What will the unions look for in this new meeting of the Salary Council?
Given this scenario, the unions will seek to obtain an increase that compensates for the impact of the price variation on wages. In the event that there is no agreement between the parties, praised the Government, as it did in the two meetings held this year.
Source: Ambito
