"Those who have a ceiling are salaries
. "
The complaint of Andrés Rodríguez, the leader of the UPCN state union, from the scene of the meeting organized this Tuesday by Amcham summarized the
greater discomfort
that in the last week overcame the leadership of the CGT in its open confrontation with the government of Javier Milei.
Neither the insistent official pressure for
labor reform
nor the imminent appointment of a man from Techint and the UIA as head of the Ministry of Labor explain the union anger.
The main bitterness has an exclusive reason and with direct effects in the short term: the decision of the libertarian administration
not to approve the joint agreements closed in the private sector
, a situation that already
puts in check the payment of the salary increases agreed upon
in negotiations. between companies and unions.
The alarm light went off a couple of weeks ago with the decision of the now fired Secretary of Labor, Omar Yasin, to delay the approval by the labor authorities, a mandatory mechanism for the validity of the wage increases agreed on jointly, of the agreement signed by Hugo and Pablo Moyano on behalf of the Truckers union with the business chambers of the activity.
From a formal point of view, the officials argued that a sector of the business representation had rejected some points of the agreement.
But Yasin himself justified the non-approval of the joint venture in an explicit decision by the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo.
"
Caputo's order is not to validate increases greater than 14% in March and 9% in April
," Labor spokespersons explained when asked by
Clarín
.
The Moyano had agreed with the chambers on an increase of 25% for March and another 20% for April and have already announced conflicts in the different branches of cargo transportation if the companies do not pay the agreed increase on time.
Video
The leader of Truckers targeted the head of INDEC after learning the latest inflation index.
The Truckers case was not the only one.
Another dozen activities
that agreed to their equal increases starting in March with increases above the Caputo limit suffered the same fate of non-approval.
The list includes activities such as loading and unloading, which agreed to an improvement for March of 17% plus a trigger clause for inflation, graphic workers who signed a 20% increase for this month and building managers who agreed since February to an increase of Four. Five%.
"
There are some agreements that will never be approved
," they said in Labor in direct reference to the increase negotiated by Suterh, Víctor Santamaría's union.
But the novelty of the last week that ended up grating the nerves in the CGT was the determination of the labor authorities not to validate either
the agreements signed between January and early February
, prior to the informal communication of the ceiling imposed by Caputo.
"Nothing is approved, except the public sector. This is going to cause problems," warned a leader of the CGT's front line.
"The only things that have a ceiling are salaries," Daer and Rodríguez denounced at the Amcham summit.
The
Commerce union
, the largest representing more than 1.2 million workers,
is one of those affected
: Labor did not approve the February agreement, which established a salary increase of 17.6%.
"
They promise free parities but then they do not approve them, unusual
. Most companies still pay the increase as an item on account, but in the interior there are businesses that decided not to pay until it is approved. The same thing is happening to everyone "they warned near Armando Cavalieri, the head of the merchant union.
Nor did Gerardo Martínez, the head of Uocra, get the labor authorities to validate the latest understanding that he sealed with the representatives of the Chamber of Construction (Camarco) and that established a 14% increase for February in the midst of the strong crisis that activity is going through, with more than 50 thousand direct jobs lost due to the stoppage of public works.
Video
Manuel Adorni's response to Pablo Moyano, after his comments about the February inflation index.
The situation is replicated with the joint agreements of the food industry, textile factories, banks, milling production, the glass and plastic sectors, the agreements of the UOM with the steel and metallurgical sector, pastry chefs, gastronomy, among others.
Strikingly, the oil sector, which signed its agreement at the beginning of January with a 41% increase for the first two months and will resume its discussions in the coming weeks to negotiate a new increase, also failed to get its understanding approved.
"
There is a political decision to liquidate salaries
that is why they do not standardize anything," they accuse from the union led by Daniel Yofra.
The commercial agreement negotiated by Armando Cavalieri was also not approved.
Among the unions, they maintain that
by law there is a maximum period of 30 days
for the labor authorities to validate the agreements, after which
a type of tacit approval applies, which has already happened with the case of the Santamaría building managers' agreement
.
But they also warn that in many
companies they rely on the non-validation of Labor to avoid paying
the agreed increases and force the unions to complain to the Justice so that the agreed increases are paid, with the usual delays of the courts.
In the opinion of Luis Campos, researcher at the Institute of Studies and Training of the CTA, in addition to a "clear attack on collective bargaining", behind the Government's decision not to approve the agreements "
there is an implicit endorsement for employers "Do not pay until the approval is in place and thus finance yourself at the expense of
the workers' salaries."
Another of those affected by the situation is the co-head of the CGT Héctor Daer, who after a general strike in the healthcare sector, agreed to an increase of 45.6% in two cumulative tranches for Health workers.
However,
various clinics and medical centers in the interior chose not to pay the increase
while waiting for it to be approved, the union denounced.