The UGT and CCOO ask to raise the minimum wage at least 7%

Barcelona/BrusselsThe major trade unions are calling for a minimum wage (SMI) increase of at least 7% by 2027, placing it above 1,300 euros per month. In a joint press conference held by the UGT and CCOO in Madrid, both organizations defended an increase that would update the threshold to at least 1,306 gross euros paid over 14 installments, or 1,524 euros over twelve. Currently, the state minimum wage is 1,221 gross euros in fourteen payments, which is equivalent to 1,424 euros in twelve monthly installments.

"Taking into account the imbalance between the raise applied in February of this year and the CPI, we are talking about a difference of around 2%. Therefore, we believe that the SMI increase for 2027 must reach at least 7%," said UGT General Secretary Pepe Álvarez. For his part, his CCOO counterpart, Unai Sordo, added: "The minimum wage must soon rise by at least 7%, to sit above 1,300 euros per month in 14 payments, which is equivalent to more than 1,500 euros per month if we calculate it in 12 payments.".

As they explained, this SMI increase is expected to be one of the demands of the general strike scheduled for November 11. Sordo also recalled the Spanish government's commitment to legislate to prevent the absorption and compensation of bonuses and salary supplements within the minimum wage. The Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, began the steps last week to set the increase, and does not rule out that the raise could end up being approved in the middle of the election campaign, which kicks off on November 13.

The umpteenth "notion" from the unions

From Brussels, the president of Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, has described the proposal as a "whim" of the unions, which in no case has the opinion of the employers. "The unions lately have a whim every week," he asserted, and equated the proposal to raise the minimum wage with the general strike for housing called for November 11th, which Foment considers "inopportune and irresponsible politics." "Tomorrow they could propose the whim that people should not go to work and that companies should continue paying salaries," he ironized.

Sánchez Llibre has traveled to the community capital to deliver to representatives of the European Commission the white paper on absenteeism that Foment presented at the end of September, which estimated the cost of this problem at 33 billion euros in 2025. The objective, he explained, is to sensitize European institutions to the absenteeism that, according to him, Spanish companies suffer and which Spain leads in the EU, followed by Slovenia and Belgium.

It is worth remembering that the latest updates to the minimum wage have not had the support of the business sector. In fact, the last time CEOE and Cepyme supported raising it was in 2020, when it went from 900 to 950 euros per month. Since then, SMI increases have been carried out with the approval of the unions and without that of the employers' associations.

Mobilizing unrest over housing

Regarding the November 11th strike, the secretaries general of the UGT and CCOO have defended the need to mobilize to accompany the "unrest" on the streets regarding the housing situation. Álvarez pointed out that the "recipients" are diverse, starting with the CEOE employers' association, from whom they demand that salary negotiations be opened immediately with a new agreement for employment and collective bargaining (AENC, for its acronym in Spanish), and continuing with the different public administrations, territorial governments, and the state government. "No one can be exempt [...], but the decisive powers regarding housing belong to the autonomous communities," asserted Sordo, who emphasized that salary and housing claims go hand in hand.

"The consequences that housing has on wages are evident. We have been saying for a long time that there is no collective agreement that can withstand the impact that the price of housing has on the cost of living," said Álvarez. The secretary general of CCOO, moreover, accepted that the strike called "does not respond to the historical patterns of what a general strike is in Spain," but assured that "it has not been improvised by the trade union organizations." Sordo also wanted to highlight the current business context: "Companies are accumulating more profits than ever and they must distribute them through a generalized salary increase."