The increase in the minimum, vital and mobile wage will have to wait a few more days and will be
resolved unilaterally by the Government
.
That definition was the corollary of the
failure of the deliberations
that officials from the Ministry of Labor, union representatives and employers held this Thursday within the framework of the Salary Council, which met for the first time since the beginning of Javier Milei's administration.
After the frustrated negotiation, the Executive informed
Clarín
that the definition of the increase in the minimum wage, which is key in determining the amount of the benefit of the Empower Work plan, the value of the minimum pensions and the salary floor from which workers are affected by the Income Tax, it
will be resolved in the coming days
.
The Government is analyzing various proposals for the increase that should take effect from February, but the resolution will remain in the hands of the Secretary of Labor, Omar Yasín, after
consulting with the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo.
As anticipated from business and union sectors prior to the start of the meeting, the deliberations of the Salary Council failed to advance towards an understanding.
The union representation made up of the CGT and the two CTA proposed in the plenary session an increase of 85%, which meant taking the current salary floor from $156,000 to $288,600, but the initiative was rejected on two occasions by the leaders of the business chambers. , who did not make any alternative offer.
"It was unusual,
the business proposal was for zero increase since March
," they questioned from the libertarian administration itself and blamed the chambers for the failure of the negotiations.
In that sense, some spokespersons even mentioned that the absence of Daniel Funes de Rioja, head of the UIA, was decisive in preventing the discussions with the union members from being unstuck.
On the other hand, the leadership of the CGT issued a harsh statement as soon as the frustrated meeting ended, in which
it placed responsibility on the Government for the lack of an understanding on the new minimum wage.
“Breaking a long tradition of tripartite social dialogue and collective agreements within the scope of the Wage Council in our country, the
Government prevented the normal development of the meeting with the sole objective of boycotting any possibility of agreement
,” accused the main labor union in his pronouncement.
As soon as the Council started, there was surprise at the way in which the initial deliberations were carried out, since the Ministry of Labor enabled two parallel Zoom rooms, in one for dialogue with employers and in the other with union members.
Thus, practically
the negotiation was not such, since each party expressed their opinions separately, prior to the plenary meeting, which was decisive to set the increase
.
Given the proposal to increase the unions, there was a first vote that ended in a tie due to business rejection of the requested increase, so the discussions were extended without new alternatives for the increase being introduced.
In the second vote, the same result was repeated, so, almost five hours after the meeting began, Yasín concluded the negotiation and announced that the Government would establish by ruling the increase in the minimum wage.
The CGT pointed towards that result.
“
The Government prevented the meeting from taking place normally by every possible means
, the businessmen led by the Argentine Industrial Union were complacent with that strategy and
did not formulate any proposal
.
The same businessmen who in the ILO defend social dialogue and collective consensus as a fundamental tool for the economic and social development of the country, today erased with their actions what they proclaim with words in international forums,” the union center accused.
From the previous one it was known that the CGT was going to ask for an increase of 85%, with the argument of the salary loss suffered by the effects of inflation in December and January, in both cases with data greater than 20 percentage points.
Now, after the failure of the negotiations, the Government is evaluating among several alternatives the increase that it will finally provide by decree and the period for its validity.
The discussion over the amount of the minimum wage occurs periodically and has a direct impact on different sectors of the economy, both the highest and lowest earners.
In the case of the Profits tax, it has an impact because it modifies the salary floor from which workers are covered by the payment of the tax (15 minimum wages).
But it also hits directly into social plans: Empower Work, the main state assistance program, represents half the Minimum Wage.
In addition, it modifies the minimum pensions (whose value is equivalent to 82% of the salary floor) and other social programs such as the Progresar scholarships.
The minimum wage also constitutes the main reference for salaries in the informal sector and updates the income of some 300 thousand private workers outside the agreement.
With the salary floor still at $156,000, awaiting an update, the Empower Work remains at $78,000 per month, while the floor for those who pay Earnings is located at $2,340,000.
These amounts will be renewed once the Government decides to unilaterally update the new figures.
The CGT statement, accusing the Government of failure
"The Government made the meeting of the Minimum Living and Mobile Wage fail," is the beginning of the statement that the CGT signed as soon as the meeting ended in which it had proposed raising the SMVM 85% higher than its current value.
"Breaking a long tradition of tripartite social dialogue and collective agreements within the Wage Council in our country, the government prevented the normal development of the meeting with the sole objective of boycotting any possibility of agreement," they maintain in the text.
"The General Confederation of Labor has been requesting a Council meeting since December to establish a new Minimum Wage and a new value of the unemployment benefit," they add from the labor union.
And they comment: "In times of very high inflation and with intolerable and unjustifiable increases in prices, establishing a social floor is necessary and cannot be postponed. As it is public knowledge, the CGT proposal is to establish an 85% increase on the last amount from the February 1, setting a base of $288,600. This proposal had the agreement of the three labor confederations and the rejection of the business counterpart."
Thus, they hit La Rosada again: "The Government prevented by all possible means the meeting from taking place normally, the businessmen led by the Argentine Industrial Union were complacent with that strategy and did not formulate any proposal."
"And then to the businessmen: "The same businessmen who in the ILO defend social dialogue and collective consensus as a fundamental tool for the economic and social development of the country, today erased with their actions what they proclaim with words in international forums" To close, finally: "The General Confederation of Labor ratifies the importance of establishing a new value of the Minimum Living and Mobile Wage, absolutely degraded by the intolerable inflationary process."