The previous agreement expires in 2012 and sets rises between 1% and 2%. Met this Wednesday and next encounters may occur. The Prime Minister believes that it is a sample of responsibility by social agents. Unions Comisiones Obreras (CC OO) and General Workers Union (UGT) and the Spanish Confederation of business organizations (CEOE) firmed the renewal of the social agreement to maintain wage moderation until 2013 or 2014, whose current term extends to 2012, and which sets rises of between 1% and 2% for this year, and between 1.5% and 2.5% for the next. Union sources have pointed out that on Wednesday there was a technical meeting between the parties and do not rule out that there is new encounters the coming week to move forward on the Pact. The Secretaries General of CCOO, Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, and UGT, Candido Mendez, sent a letter to the President of the Government, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, on August 18, which is they were willing to extend the period of wage moderation if employers currently their profit margins and committed to make investments. Zapatero, grateful sources have confirmed that a day earlier Zapatero convened a meeting to both Union leaders, along with the President of the CEOE, Juan Rosell, asking that the agreement which ends in 2012, according to El Pais newspaper this Wednesday ahead they continue until 2014.
Zapatero, during his speech at the plenary session of the Congress on Tuesday for dnder their latest economic measures, thanked Toxo y Mendez his letter and said it was a sample of responsibility at a moment in which reforms to job creation are needed. The President also stressed the need to moderate wages and benefits for the competitiveness lost from the entry into the euro, which could not be retrieved in part thanks to the validity of the current collective bargaining agreement, signed by the employer and trade unions in 2010. The Chair added It would be one more link of credibility on the path of recovery if the social agents to immediately extend agreement to a longer period. Source of the news: trade unions and employers negotiate an agreement to extend the wage moderation until 2014