UGT has called this Friday for wage increases that exceed inflation, with the aim of regaining the purchasing power lost by workers, after the CPI remained in October at 4.9% year-on-year. Along the same lines, the union demands that the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI) increase by at least 7% in 2027.
In a note issued after the figures from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) were released, the union organization described as “insufficient” the proposal from the Ministry of Labour to raise the SMI by 5.3% in 2027, to 1,286 euros per month in fourteen pay periods.
According to UGT, that rise would not allow for the loss of purchasing power recorded in 2026 to be offset. In that year, the 3.1% increase in the SMI lagged behind a price escalation of close to 5%.
In addition to the 7% increase in the SMI, UGT calls for a reform of the IRPF so that the pay improvement is passed on to net wages and is not neutralized by taxation. It also demands that what was agreed on 29 January be complied with to approve a rule that would prevent the compensation and absorption of wage supplements, as well as the approval of the royal decree on the recording of working hours. All of this, the union emphasizes, should be in place before 1 January 2027.
At the same time, the organization has urged employers to unblock the VI Acuerdo para el Empleo y la Negociación Colectiva (AENC), whose lack of progress, it denounces, keeps thousands of collective agreements across the country stalled.
UGT argues that this agreement must guarantee wage increases above inflation, include wage guarantee clauses, and address the housing problem through specific supplements in the most tense residential areas.
The union warns that wages agreed in collective bargaining have grown by 3.05% up to September (3.6% in the collective agreements signed this year), chaining seven consecutive months below the CPI and placing themselves below the average inflation forecast for the whole of 2026, estimated at 3.7%.