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22nd of March 2023In Spain,Juan Díez de los Ríos, president of contract cleaning association Aspel and member of the CEOE (Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations), has declared that "we cannot give what we do not have".
This is following the announcement by the Council of Ministers of the new increase in the minimum wage from €1000 to €1080 per month, a rise of eight per cent.
According to Díez de los Ríos: "It is not the amount that is important for our sector but the fact the Government continues to forget that service sectors have been bearing additional costs of all kinds for many years."
He added: "We do not have the tool to review prices, and on this we are in agreement with the employers' associations and the trade unions - but we cannot get them to listen to us even so."
Díez de los Ríos criticised the fact this new rise in the minimum wage is happening within an economic context marked by uncertainty and that it continues to disrupt collective bargaining. He said: "This rise affects 53 per cent of cleaning agreements and 32 per cent of workers. How can we sit down at the table to negotiate with the other party if the Government has already given us a done deal and we have no margin in those cleaning contracts already signed with their compulsory extensions?"
He also explained that public contracts constitute over 40 per cent of turnover which amounted to almost €11,000 million in 2022 - with a labour cost element of more than 85 per cent.
So Aspel is calling for a reform to the law of deindexation to allow for modification of the value of contracts already signed.