Ismael Bermúdez
04/29/2020 - 11:22
- Clarín.com
- Economy
- Economy
As expected, the CGT-UIA agreement became the floor and the driving force behind new sectoral agreements on suspensions with salary cuts that will be approved by the Government through the Ministry of Labor that led to the union-employer agreement.
Thus, immediately two key activities, such as metallurgists and commerce –which encompass more than 1.2 million workers- signed suspension agreements with their own characteristics regarding the duration and scope of the suspensions. Now, the decision of the companies in each sector to apply these agreements is awaited .
Meanwhile, other unions such as footwear, gastronomic and hospitality are negotiating similar agreements.
Even before the CGT and the Industrial Union signed the suspension agreement with a 25% salary reduction for the months of April and May , due to the partial suspensions applied, among others, in oil, metallurgical, commerce, textiles and gastronomy, more than 400,000 workers had wage cuts, according to a CEPA report (Center for Argentine Economic Policy).
Although dismissals and suspensions are prohibited during April and May, Decree No. 329 left open the possibility of applying Article 223 of the Labor Contract Law that allows, "by force majeure" or "reduction of work" , suspensions are agreed individually or collectively in exchange for a non-remunerative remuneration lower than the current remunerations.
Precisely, the union-business act indicates that in the agreements with a salary floor of 75% or a higher percentage, “the enforcement authority will automatically homologate the agreements that are presented, considering the requirements established in art. 223 bis of the Labor Contract Law ”.
However, it left open the possibility that in the event that salary floors or a different scope and duration are established, the collective agreement presented by the business and union sectors will be submitted to the consideration of the enforcement authority, "in order to evaluate its origin , according to the situation of the sector or the company ”.
In turn, the agreement specifies that "employers may order the application of the suspensions simultaneously, alternately, rotatingly, totally or partially, according to their respective productive realities." But it will not be able to understand those who carry out the tasks by means of teleworking or “the workers excluded from the duty of assistance to the workplace by the exemption contained in Resolution 207/20 regarding people with health risk (older or pre-existing pathologies) ”.
In turn, the companies that apply these agreed suspensions "must keep their workforce unchanged for a period equal to the validity of this rule."
An exception
However, the metallurgical agreement between the UOM and three business chambers in the sector –which includes 60,000 workers– is for 120 days from April 1 with the payment of 70% of the gross salary (equivalent to 86% of the pocket salary) as a “non-remunerative” benefit and renewable if the quarantine is maintained. And it extends the suspension to workers exempted from attending their jobs because they are a population at risk, either because of age or due to health conditions, despite the fact that the Resolutions of the Ministry of Labor established that these employees have the right to receive their wages without you remove , comprehensively.
Thus, if the wage purchasing power suffered a reduction of 15% during the administration of Mauricio Macri, since the application of quarantine, an additional drop in the income of a significant portion of the registered workers is added.
In turn, the CGT-UIA Act specifies that the complementary salary that ANSeS will pay and that will be received by workers in the private sector - which in no case will be less than the value of the minimum, vital and mobile salary ($ 16,875) nor more than two wages minimum - will be considered part of the agreed monetary benefit, "so that the amount charged by the employer will complement it until reaching the established percentage".
Consequently, since the value of state aid is calculated on February salaries, the employer's salary for April and May is proportionally reduced because it complements a labor income that is at least 25% lower.
For Matías Cremonte , head of the Association of Labor Lawyers, “the UIA and the CGT, with the participation of the Ministry of Labor, cannot agree on a general reduction in wages , because it would imply progress on the autonomy of unions. But the signal that they send with that agreement, still presented as a "floor", is worrisome. They are endorsing the salary reductions , since the decrees dealt with establishing the general principle that quarantine should not imply a reduction in wages. "And he adds:" You cannot put workers on the same level as companies to face the obvious economic consequences of the pandemic. Wages must be specially protected in these circumstances, otherwise the objective of guaranteeing the health of the population, whose basis is adequate food, is not met. ”
NE