The CCOO and UGT unions have reached an agreement in principle with the AGFAE employers’ association in the negotiating committee for the collective agreement of the sugar industry, with wage increases that avoid the indefinite strike that was called in the sector, as reported by the unions in a communicated and collected by the Europa Press agency.
Specifically, this agreement, which comes after more than 12 hours of negotiation yesterday at SIMA and 11 meetings, allows for “guaranteeing the maintenance of purchasing power for the next three years and recovering an important part of what was lost during the previous three years.” , indicate the union centers.
The unions have indicated that the sugar employers’ association made its position more flexible this Wednesday and this principle could be achieved in accordance with which the yeast employers’ association (Lesaffre and AB Mauri) has not joined, which has continued “with its attempt to block the agreement until the end”, denounce the workers’ organizations.
Salary increases until 2026
In this way, in the negotiation progress has been made to salary increases of 4% for 2024 and 2025, and 2% in 2026. In addition, the unions explain that they have managed to recover the salary review clause. For this agreement, if the CPI increases from January 1, 2024 to December 31, 2026 exceed 13%, there will be a review of salaries as of January 1, 2027 with a cap of 2 points.
Another of the agreements has been the creation of a new payment of 500 fixed euros per year, which may reach 1,200 euros, negotiating within the internal scope of each company the conditions to be able to reach the maximum, while if there is no agreement, the fixed amount will be will turn into 800 euros.
In addition, an improvement has been achieved in the extra shifts in those with four and five teams, going from three euros to four euros per day from January 1 of this year, which rises to five euros per day from 2026.
The unions have indicated that the modification of some other agreements of the current collective agreement has been pre-agreed, such as the extension of the fixed-term contract period to nine and 12 months depending on the percentage of workers with an indefinite contract, the form of the call to discontinuous permanent positions in accordance with recent judicial pronouncements or the maintenance of the opposition competition and the possibility of an open and publicized selection process up to level 11 and 12 A.
The negotiators of the agreement on the part of the workers consider that, with their advances and concessions, “it is a positive agreement in general terms for all workers in the sugar and yeast sector.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
