Among the proposals that the employer has been putting forward, a 4% salary increase in fixed concepts from January 2021 stands out.
The Regional Federation of Transport Organizations and Companies of Murcia (Froet) regretted this Friday the “posture” of the unions in the negotiation of the collective agreement for road transport, adopting a “immobile” position contrary to any possibility of reaching an agreement between the parties, prioritizing the benefit of only one party, leaving aside the interests of the rest of the workers.
This Friday a meeting took place to establish security and maintenance measures in the development of the strike and in which, despite not being the objective of the strike, at the request of the mediator, an attempt has been made by the employers resume some negotiation attempt, which has been broken by showing an “unacceptable” conduct on the part of the unions in the negotiation of those possible security and maintenance measures for which the meeting had been called.
Among the proposals that the employer has been raising at the negotiating table, a 4% salary increase in fixed concepts of 4% since January 2021 (base salary, plus transportation and assistance), to which must be added an increase of 7% in the mileage plus.
These percentages are well above the average, since the average rise in the CPI agreed in the agreement negotiations until November 2021 has been 1.49%, according to data from the Ministry of Labor.
An adaptation of the amount of the allowances to reality has been proposed, transferring the difference to a salary supplement per contributionable day for those drivers who spend the night outside the workplace. This is a demand made by the unions to improve the salary and contribution conditions of drivers who spend days away from home and which, surprisingly, is now insufficient.
In addition, the unions remain “rooted” with regard to the mileage bonus, despite being perfectly aware that a Supreme Court ruling considers it a valid instrument to pay for the “possible” overtime that is done.
“They have become obsessed with a request that is legally protected, forgetting the rest of the proposals, despite the fact that they represent a very significant improvement for all workers in the sector, with a significant salary increase and an increase in the contribution base”, explained Froet’s deputy secretary, Eva Melenchón.
Likewise, Froet considers that the unions act “in bad faith” through a “disinformation campaign” towards workers. “They talk about a drop in salary and loss of purchasing power, although they know, through mathematical calculations, which is not true,” said Melenchón, who revealed that “the unions themselves presented us with twelve assumptions for us to apply the increase we proposed and, With the boards in hand, in no case was there harm to the worker, quite the contrary.
Union Pataleta
The Murcian transport employers’ association believes that the attitude of the unions is “a tantrum”, because the employers are the ones who, for years, have taken up the banner of defending labor rights, demanding the suppression of loading and unloading, compensation waiting, and safe rest areas.
“It is the businessmen who are going to close their businesses for three days, despite the losses they are going to have in the middle of the export and Christmas season, precisely to demand rights and dignity for their workers and the survival of the sector,” added Melenchón.
Faced with the “disastrous” information that the unions are transmitting, Froet suggests that workers request in their company the real information about the offer made by the employer and calculate what its application would entail. In fact, some companies are already paying an average increase of 5% on account of the collective agreement.
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