Spanish government offers to gradually increase civil servants' salaries by 10%
Staff unions have rejected the proposal that implies a fixed increase of 4% between this year and next and another 6% in the following two years
After 11 months with frozen pay packets and with the cuts imposed on them during the "Great Recession" still very present, civil servant workers said they felt "insulted" on Wednesday by the pay-rise offer made by Spain's government: a fixed increase of 10% spread over four years, that is, for the 2025-2028 period. Following the meeting with the Ministry of Public Administration, which had been postponed for months until it was called after the workers threatened to call a general strike in December, the unions denounced the proposal.
"This increase is totally unacceptable and is an insult to public employees," the CC OO union said, accusing the government of neglecting public workers. Similarly, CSIF and UGT also rejected this offer, stating that it would mean a further cut in purchasing power for more than 3.5 million public workers.
The government's proposal was to distribute the fixed increase of 10% (nothing has been said about the variable increase that was included in the previous offer) over this year and the following three years, but not equally. It plans a smaller increase of no more than 4% between 2025 and 2026, precisely when inflation is expected to be at its highest, and a larger increase of the remaining 6% for 2027 and 2028; in other words, contrary to the expected growth of prices.
The ministry's justification for this allocation, which runs counter to the rate of inflation, is that the spending ceiling cannot be exceeded. This, however, will almost certainly mean a loss of purchasing power, since the CPI this year alone has already climbed above 3%, reaching 3.1% based on data up to October.
The government has been forced to withdraw the proposal after the strong rejection. A new urgent meeting was called for the next day.
The threat of strike action is up in the air
The threat of a general strike had an effect. The unions accused the government of containing the wages of public workers, while boasting of being the leader of "economic growth in the EU". The latest forecast even modified the upward trend from 2.7% to 2.9% for this year. The UGT union, being more cautious, have stated that, for now, they choose to trust the government and negotiations.
The three unions highlighted their demand: the new multi-year agreement must recover purchasing power after years of cuts or at least guarantee it. CSIF said that, since 2022 (the year of the previous agreement), the salaries of more than three million public workers have been devalued by 8%. If we take the period since 2010, when cuts lowered wages, the loss rises to almost 20%.
