The services that support a good part of the day-to-day operations of administrations are facing a problem that is beginning to transfer to the political arena: their costs are rising, but the public contracts that guarantee their provision cannot always do so at the same pace. Attention to the elderly and dependents, home assistance, cleaning, or maintenance often depend on companies that work with prices set by the Administration and are now demanding a change in the rules to prevent the increase in costs from jeopardizing the viability of the services
This is the problem that alianzAS, the confederation that groups together twelve business organizations of essential services intensive in labor, is conveying to the institutions. The sector is demanding to modify the framework of public contracting to allow for price reviews when unforeseen cost increases occur, especially those arising from regulatory changes.
The sector is demanding to modify the framework of public contracting to allow for price reviews when unforeseen cost increases occur
The claim affects activities very close to the day-to-day lives of citizens: attention to dependency, home assistance, cleaning, maintenance of facilities, collective catering, sports services, or special employment centers, among others. Altogether, the organizations integrated into alianzAS represent more than 1.5 million workers and more than 2.25% of the national GDP, according to data provided by the confederation itself.
The problem: contracts that do not keep pace with costs
The main demand of alianzAS is to introduce mechanisms that allow for the updating of the economic conditions of public contracts when companies have to assume cost increases that they could not foresee when bidding.
The issue takes on special relevance in sectors where the labor component has a very high weight. According to data conveyed by the confederation, labor costs represent between 80% and 90% of the costs of these companies. At the same time, the minimum interprofessional wage has increased by 75% since 2015, the year in which the Law of Deindexation came into force, to which the sector links a good part of the current difficulties in reviewing contracts.
The employers' association assures that it does not question the improvement of labor conditions. Its argument is another: if an Administration establishes new obligations or there are cost increases resulting from regulatory changes, there should be some mechanism to transfer those effects to public contracts that remain in force.
During a day that took place in June at the Congress of Deputies, the president of alianzAS, Javier Sigüenza, summarized the position of the confederation defending that the challenge is not to stop labor advances, but to find mechanisms that allow them to be compatible with the economic sustainability of companies and with the quality of public service.
The problem is not minor due to the volume of activity that is channeled through service contracts. According to the Annual Supervision Report of the Independent Office of Regulation and Supervision of Public Procurement corresponding to 2024, cited by alianzAS, service contracts represent 48% of the base bidding budget and more than 45% of the total number of tenders.
This weight explains why the confederation argues that any change in procurement rules has consequences that go far beyond the awarded companies.
A debate that has reached Congress
The claim has already left the strictly business sphere. Last June, alianzAS organized at Congress the day The value of the essential, in which representatives of the Government, unions, CEOE, companies, and parliamentary groups participated.
During the meeting, the president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, defended the need to strengthen public-private collaboration and expressly supported the inclusion of price review mechanisms in the Public Sector Contracts Law.
The day itself later brought together representatives from PP, PSOE, and Vox. The three groups agreed on valuing social dialogue and collective bargaining and pointed out the interest in advancing through agreements in an area that the organization presents as susceptible to broad parliamentary consensus.
AlianzAS also recalls that UGT-Public Services and CCOO of Habitat signed a document in which they demand to modify the Public Sector Contracts Law. The organization adds the public support of CEOE and the support expressed by the Ministry of Labor during the negotiations of the SMI.
The debate, therefore, is now situated in another area: how to translate that consensus into a concrete modification of the legal framework and who should promote it.
The focus of the claim is especially placed on the Ministry of Finance. The reason is that the Public Procurement Advisory Board of the State, advisory and interpretative body of the Public Sector Contracts Law, plays a relevant role in the application of the current framework.