Business leaders and unions shared the stage this Sunday before Pope Leo XIV at the Movistar Arena in Madrid. At the ‘Tejer Redes’ (Weaving Networks) meeting, one of the major social events of the Pontiff's visit to Spain, employers' associations and trade unions have brought a common underlying question to the center of the event: how to build a more competitive economy without losing sight of the dignity of work and the human dimension of companies.
Antonio Garamendi, president of CEOE, and Ángela López de Miguel, president of CEPYME, represented the Spanish employers' association. Unai Sordo, general secretary of CCOO, and Pepe Álvarez, leader of UGT, spoke on behalf of the workers.
The image had symbolic weight: business leaders and unions, usually on different sides of the negotiation table, gathered before the Pope to advocate for social dialogue as a tool for stability, prosperity, and social peace.
Garamendi asks Leo XIV if the world is more efficient or more human
Antonio Garamendi launched one of the central phrases of the economic block of the meeting. Before Leo XIV, the president of CEOE asked if society is building “a more efficient world or a more human world.”
The idea served to frame a reflection on the role of the company in a time marked by innovation, technological transformation, and competitive pressure. Garamendi argued that competitiveness cannot be understood solely as productivity, speed, or profitability, but also as the capacity for cooperation.
The president of the employers' association advocated for social dialogue and collective bargaining as instruments that allow shared objectives to be achieved. In his speech, he stressed that working together is also part of competitiveness when the outcome seeks to benefit society as a whole.
CEPYME warns: the more technology, the more humanity
Ángela López de Miguel, president of CEPYME, closed the business intervention with a warning about the technological future. Her message was direct: the more technology advances, the more human connections will be necessary.
The head of the organization of small and medium-sized enterprises pointed out that the company of the future will not be able to sustain itself solely on data, predictions, or automation. It will need trust, meaning, and real human relationships.
The message connects with one of the great open debates in the world of work: the impact of artificial intelligence, digitalization, and automation on companies. Faced with a purely technical vision of progress, López de Miguel has defended an economy where people continue to occupy the center.
Sordo rejects a society based on the fight of the last against the second to last
From the trade union sphere, Unai Sordo has focused on social justice and the need to prevent the most vulnerable sectors from competing with each other for scarce resources.
The general secretary of CCOO has warned that we must not resign ourselves to living in a world turned into "the struggle of the last against the second to last." The phrase summarizes one of trade unionism's central concerns: that economic crises, precariousness, or inequality end up pitting workers, the unemployed, young people, migrants, and pensioners against each other.
Sordo has also appealed to Antonio Machado to demand more just, more dignified societies and "good, in the good sense of the word good." His intervention has introduced a moral dimension into the labor debate: it is not just about distributing income, but about deciding what kind of coexistence we want to build.
UGT and CCOO claim collective bargaining as social peace
Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez have defended collective bargaining as an essential piece of social balance. They have not presented it merely as a technical mechanism for agreeing on wages or working conditions, but as a "silent infrastructure" that allows companies to be spaces of economic prosperity, social well-being, and personal development.
The unions have stressed that social dialogue is not only used to resolve conflicts. It also allows for anticipating them, ordering differences, and generating stability in companies and productive sectors.
At that point, the union message partially coincided with that of the employers' association: negotiation is not a brake, but a way of building lasting agreements in an increasingly complex economic context.
An unusual image: employers and unions in the same message
The labor block of the 'Tejer Redes' meeting has left an infrequent image: CEOE, CEPYME, CCOO, and UGT united around a common language on social dialogue, decent work, and shared responsibility.
The differences between employers and unions still exist, but the event before Leo XIV has sought another photograph: that of work as a space where business, rights, productivity, social cohesion, and human meaning intersect.
At a time of accelerated technological changes, wage tensions, and debates on reducing working hours, employment, productivity, or artificial intelligence, the common message has been that the future of work cannot be built solely on efficiency.
The Pope Listens to the Economic and Labor World at the Movistar Arena
The Movistar Arena meeting is part of Leo XIV's agenda in Madrid and brings together representatives from culture, art, economy, education, and sports. The event, under the slogan ‘Weaving Networks’, seeks to open a space for dialogue between the Church and different sectors of civil society.
The presence of employers and unions fits into that objective. Work is one of the great arenas where social cohesion is played out: it measures equal opportunities, quality of life, technological integration, and a society's ability not to leave behind those in more fragile positions.