A few days after a large number of collective agreements expire, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security will announce the guidelines for salary negotiation.
He Executive powerwill announce next week the guidelines that will govern the 10th Round of the Wages Councilthe last one prior to the electoral period through which the new government of Uruguay; in the midst of complaints from different sectors due to the delay that this step – essential for wage negotiations – has had.
Next week, the Tripartite Higher Council, where the government will announce the guidelines that will govern collective bargaining in 195 activities; a process that, according to PIT-CNT, it has taken longer than it should have, which has meant discontent between the unions and the central union of workers.
Although these guidelines have not yet been announced, the Minister of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), Pablo Mieres, said that it will “reflect the commitment of complete the recovery of the purchasing power of wages”. This is a promise that was made when the guidelines were given in the previous round, and that was repeated each time the issue came back on the table. And it is part of a broad government objective to recover the real salary of workers, something that has happened unevenly in the different sectors since the last two years, after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The discontent of the PIT-CNT
For its part, the trade union center has already expressed on several occasions its disgust and discomfort at the delay in the communication of the guidelines. In this regard, the member of the executive Secretary, Fernando Ferreira, noted that the inconvenience is due to the fact that there is not even an “outline” of what the guidelines can be, just over a week away from the expiration of a large number of collective agreements. Specifically, on July 1 the agreements of some 280 groups and subgroups expire, he noted. In this sense, at Single National Union of Construction and Annexes (Sunca) The term has already expired, which is why the union is also claiming, in a particular way.
In addition, from the PIT-CNT it is anxious to know what will be the proposal that the government will make for those who had a wage loss for being employees of sectors that suffered from the pandemic, who were asked a “bridge” period in 2021 due to the impact of Covid-19. Ferreira said that there was some “unofficial comment” that, instead of a recovery in 2025 for some sectors, it would be done in 2026 because it is a “very large volume.”
According to the member of the Secretariat, there are workers with a loss of purchasing power of 8%, so for these people there should be a guideline with certain characteristics. It should mark an “inflation hedge, annual corrections and a two-year correction of 8%” for the wage recovery, he said. And, in that sense, he does not see an “employer sector applying that increase in two years, especially with the situation” that some are experiencing due to the exchange difference with Argentina.
Source: Ambito
