The uncontainable pace of inflation in the first five months of the year pulverized all the plans that the Ministry of Economy, in the hands of Sergio Massa, encouraged in the search to channel the evolution of wages during 2023 as a path destined to try to contain expectations in the midst of an economic scenario full of uncertainty.
A couple of months ago the reality of the joint ventures signed took the salary cap of 60% (or two semi-annual agreements of 30%) that Massa had promoted for the whole year. Now the blow to the minister's strategy is amplified because within the framework of the process of reviewing the current agreements, increases are already being negotiated that are projected annually between 110% and 120%, double the original guideline proposed by the Government.
In this scheme is framed the understanding signed this Wednesday in the reopening of the discussion of the banks. The union led by Sergio Palazzo, no less than the trade unionist closest to Vice President Cristina Kirchner, signed with the chambers that group financial institutions a revision of the agreement signed just two months ago that raised to 66% the salary increase until July for workers of the activity.
Last March Palazzo had sealed with the banks a staggered increase of 32.5% that was completed just with the payment of salaries in May plus an unprecedented salary compensation for income tax discounts. As the accumulated inflation between January and April reached 32%, the union negotiated the revision of the increase and set an additional increase to compensate for the escalation in prices.
Thus, to the 24.1% increase that banks received until April, an improvement of 6% will be added retroactively (totaling that month a rise of 30.1%) to which will be added 14% in May to accumulate a recomposition of 44.1% against the 32.5% originally signed. The increase will be completed with another tranche of 11.9% from June and the remaining 10% in July to total 66% in June. Once the staggering is completed, the initial conformed salary of the activity will reach $ 398,271.76.
The new agreement also updated the special bonus for the Day of the Banker, which will start at $ 342,663 for the lower category of the agreement, and set for August the next review of the parity.
The negotiation signed by Palazzo, one of the few leaders of the leadership of the CGT who will be this Thursday at the act that Cristina will lead in Plaza de Mayo, will be an obligatory reference for the other parity whose review process is underway with the threat of deriving into a conflict: the bus drivers.
The UTA union, led by Roberto Fernández, was one of the only ones to pave the wage floor proposed by Massa and agreed in February a 30% increase for the January-June period in three cumulative tranches and a review clause in July. At the beginning of May he reopened the discussion and is now looking for an increase that compensates for the loss of purchasing power of wages in the sector: the minimum bet is to get the improvement to round up 50% for the first semester.
The last joint discussions signed between mid-April and May, with quarterly or six-month agreements, were part of this pattern. One of the cases is that of Health, the union led by the triumvir of the CGT Héctor Daer, which agreed with clinics and sanatoriums an increase of 50% for the April-September period, which will be implemented in 6 monthly installments and will have an impact on the prepaid fees.
Meanwhile, with pacts for three months, the joint agreements of Commerce and the UOCRA were signed. The mercantile union led by Armando Cavalieri agreed to an increase of 19.5% (April-June periods), while the construction union, headed by Gerardo Martínez, sealed a first recomposition that reaches 22% and will also be implemented in three installments between April and June.
Both agreements had replicated the model consecrated a couple of weeks earlier by the UOM union, led by the Kirchnerist Abel Furlán, in the negotiation of the metallurgical industry, where a staggered wage increase of 18.8% was also established for a period of three months.
These agreements verified the commitment to homogenize increases that are applied monthly, which opens the door to a kind of monthly indexation of wages that replicates the evolution of inflation, so if the trend of an escalation in the rise in prices accelerates and, as some private consultants anticipate, the CPI in May reaches double digits, These unions will demand to advance their respective revisions to obtain additional increases.
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