Only four out of ten salaried workers, specifically 39.4%, have a salary review clause in the collective agreements that apply to them to protect their purchasing power against the rise in prices. However, coverage varies significantly between sectors, according to data from the Ministry of Labor accessed by Europa Press, compiled from the agreements registered until August of this year.
While 74.4% of employees in the industry and 72.7% of those employed in construction subject to collective bargaining have these salary guarantee clauses in their agreements, these levels of protection barely reach 7.6% of agricultural workers and 24.5% of those working in the services sector.
By August, 1,658 agreements had been registered in the services, affecting more than 6 million salaried workers (6,017,960). However, only 1.47 million (1,475,732) included a salary review clause, which represents 24.5% of the total affected workers.
In agriculture, the number of agreements registered until August amounted to 33, affecting 121,220 workers, but only 9,265 of them had a salary guarantee clause included in their agreement.
The industry had 1,127 agreements registered until August, covering 1.73 million workers (1,729,180). Of these, 1.28 million (1,286,255) had a review clause, that is, more than seven out of ten (74.4%).
In construction, the agreements registered until the eighth month of the year were 71, affecting 976,627 workers. Of these, seven out of ten (72.7%, 709,700 workers) were protected with a salary review clause against inflation spikes.
Only three out of ten agreements include a guarantee clause
According to the Labor statistics, between January and August, 2,889 collective agreements were registered, of which only 29.9% (863 agreements) included a salary guarantee clause, and of these, 604 provided for its application with retroactive effects.
The agreements that include a review clause reach nearly 3.5 million salaried workers (3,480,952) of the more than 8.8 million (8,844,987) covered by the agreements registered until August, which represents 39.4% of the total.
As a consequence, six out of ten workers (60.6%) lack safeguard clauses in their collective agreements.
Services lead the average agreed salary increase
The salaries agreed in the agreement increased on average by 3.04% until August, clearly below the preliminary inflation figure for August, of 4.3%, which the National Institute of Statistics (INE) will have to confirm next week.
By sectors of activity, the highest average salary increase in agreements corresponds to services, with 3.07%, followed by construction (3.06%) and industry (2.95%). Agriculture is the sector with the lowest average salary increase, at 2.71%.
Trade union and business organizations have to finalize this year the new Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC), after the previous pact expired in December, which recommended salary increases of 3% for 2025, with a salary review clause that, in case of inflation deviation, could mean additional increases of up to 1% for each of the years of the agreement (2023-2025).
For the new framework, the trade unions UGT and CCOO have proposed to the employers a fixed annual salary increase of 4% for the next three years, which would mean a cumulative increase of salaries of 12% until 2028.
In addition, they have proposed an additional increase of 1% in the agreements where the average salary is 10% below the national average salary, an additional 2% for salaries that are 20% below the national average salary, and a 3% increase for those that are 30% below.
Similarly, they propose an additional increase of 1.5% for each of the years in case of inflation deviation.