The minister of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), Pablo Mieres, confirmed that the government will begin work in April on the new guidelines for the tenth round of Salary Tips in Uruguay.
Salary negotiations in the private sector will begin with coordination in the Executive power of guidelines “that have as their goal the full recovery”, of lost wages during the pandemic period. The government knows that the growth of real wages is one of the debts that it still maintains with the Uruguayans, and it “bets” that in the tenth round the situation will see improvements.
“The objective of this government is that at the end of 2024 we are in a situation where the real salary of the average worker has been recovered. Obviously there is a part of the matter that depends on the parties (employers and unions), because wage negotiations in the private sector are between parties,” Mieres said in statements to the media.
A debt that begins to settle
In mid-2021, the Executive Power presented the guidelines that guided the last round of negotiations. There they agreed adjustments based on projected inflationplus a component of partial recovery of the purchasing power lost between the middle of 2020 and 2021 (4.1%) during the bridge period.
The government’s commitment, at that time, was that the recovery would begin to take place in 2022 and would be completed in the next round of negotiations, starting in the second half of 2023. And if the numbers are observed, the path seems to be the right one. : As of January, 40.5% of private sector workers (351,475) had increased their real wages compared to July 2020, although the heterogeneity in purchasing power and in the rate of salary recovery.
While there are no specifications yet on what the guidelines for the 10th round of the Wages Board will look like, it is likely that they will be put into consideration. two year agreementsas in the previous round, maturing in mid-2025.
“The economy needs to have a biggest dynamo in terms of consumption, and some economists have raised it. I think they are right, that is, the salary increase generates the same as the tax reduction that occurred from March. They are in line with a citizenry that has better incomes, and therefore can spend more and consume more,” said Mieres.
Source: Ambito
