The social dialogue carried out by the Ministry of Labor in recent days seems to have come out of “Groundhog Day”, in the sense of repeating an already known situation.
In a paradoxical agreement, GSEE, GSEVEE and ESEE insist, almost monotonously, on requesting the reinstatement of the minimum wage in the National General Collective Labor Agreement (EGSSE). In practice, this means that they ask that the trade unionists themselves (employers and employees) take charge of the fate of the Private Sector’s base salaries, as was done until 2012. This is the umpteenth time that specific representatives of Social Partners insist on asking the which is clear: they want to take charge of the fate of salaries themselves, because in the 12 years of operation of the model imposed on the country by the Memorandums, salaries have not improved as much as they should.
Thus, citizens’ poverty levels are increasing, especially those subject to basic income. After all, who forgets that “overnight” with an Act of the Council of Ministers, the 751 euros that had been agreed between employers and workers, as a minimum wage, became 586 euros, with the simultaneous activation of the salary subminimum of 511 euros for young people up to 25 years old! The consequences are well known: not only was unemployment not contained, it soared to a level of 28%, leading tens of thousands of our young fellow citizens to look for work abroad. Now, in vain we ask them to go back. Sometimes mistakes are paid for with interest and in hard currency.
But then it was February 2012 and the country was in the Memorials quagmire. Today is October 2024 and the country continues to record positive growth rates.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Labor, also monotonous, insists on wanting to apply a mathematical formula, according to the French model. However, disagreements have already been recorded regarding this choice. First, because it includes two central assumptions: inflation and the economy’s productivity. Objections focus mainly on the area of productivity, as it is not clear how this will be determined. Furthermore, it seems futile to somehow determine the minimum wage and not take corresponding care with the average wage, which is determined by Collective Agreements.
This field, in particular, is a point of friction between trade unionists and the Ministry of Labor: it appears that there is no will on the part of the political leadership to resolve – to correct – chronic problems that prevent the conclusion of the Agreements Branch. Only the fact that only eight of these conventions were signed this year, of which only two were declared universally binding, confirms the veracity of the statement.
Without practical support from sector agreements, average wages will not improve significantly. The risk of increasing the number of workers who will receive the minimum wage, or very close to the minimum wage, is real. And then, the “working poor” will increase and this is not (should be) a statistical quantity. It’s the harsh reality.