The Government of Spain, the unions and the employers meet today to negotiate the rise of the SMI

The Ministry of Labor and Social Economy meets today with representatives of CCOO, UGT, CEOE and Cepyme to try to agree to rise what you must experience this year minimum interprofessional salary (SMI)currently located at 965 euros per month for fourteen payments.

The meeting will be held at 10:00 a.m.and everything indicates that an agreement between the Government and the unions will come out of the negotiation, without the support of the employers, as happened with the previous increase in the SMI.

On the table is the demand of CCOO and UGT for the SMI to rise this year up to 1000 euros per monthretroactively from January 1, in compliance with the commitment they signed with the Government in mid- september last year.

The government and unions also established in said agreement the commitment that the SMI, through its “progressive review” in 2022 and 2023, reach 60% of the average salary before the end of the legislature, as determined by the European Social Charter signed by Spain and as promised by the coalition government.

The business organizations were left behind in said agreement. CEOE and Cepymewho understood that it was not the time to raise the minimum wage given that the Spanish economy was at the beginning of its recovery and job creation could be damaged.

A similar argument is the one currently used by the CEOE to reject this possible increase in the SMI up to 1,000 euros. Its president, Antonio Garamendi, warned last week that raising it to this amount, as the unions are demanding, could cause a “significant contraction in employment”as there are still companies that have not recovered from the crisis, especially the smaller ones.