Discrepancy between employers' associations and unions regarding the turnout for this Wednesday's general strike. While unions and convening organizations speak of a successful work stoppage, employers' associations downplay the turnout, although they highlight the impact of picket lines and mobility difficulties as one of the factors that make the impact greater than the actual turnout for the strike by workers.

Gabriel Rufián shakes off the responsibilities for his controversial absence, this Monday, from the Pimec 29-N candidate debate and points to his own party. In an interview this morning on SER Catalunya, the Republican head of the list stated that he did not participate in the employers' association's event because the Republican campaign committee ordered him to. "I would have liked to go, but my party told me not to go," he said, adding that the result was a "huge screw-up".

Pimec had organized its traditional electoral debate for this Monday morning ahead of the November 29th elections. The association for small and medium-sized enterprises had announced that all the number one candidates for Barcelona would participate, except for Comuns-Front Ampli, which sent its number two, Ernest Urtasun, instead of Ada Colau. The surprise came when an empty chair was spotted, belonging to ERC candidate Gabriel Rufián, who was absent from the debate at the last minute. For what reason? Rufián and Pimec have offered contradictory versions throughout this morning.

The general strike on November 11th has served to define the profiles of the country's social agents. While labor and housing unions have used the call to pressure the executive and sharpen their arguments in the sphere of work –from the SMI to the reduction of the working day or the distribution of corporate profits–, employers' associations have acknowledged the residential crisis, but not the tool chosen to respond to it. The president of the Catalan association for small and medium-sized enterprises Pimec, Antoni Cañete (Barcelona, 1963), speaks with ARA about a protest he considers "a mistake" and about a tension in the buying and rental market that appeals to "society in general".

Catalan small and medium-sized enterprises are in good health. This is demonstrated by the latest edition of the Yearbook of the Catalan SME, prepared each year by the business association Pimec. According to the data in the document, presented by the organization this Monday, the smaller-sized companies in the Principality managed in 2024 to narrow the productivity gap that has historically separated them from larger businesses. According to the report, the country's small and medium-sized enterprises increased their productivity by 2.7%, to an average of 74,355 euros per employee; while large ones recorded a slight decline in the same year, of 0.1%, to 93,405 euros per worker.

Do not rule it out. After the general elections on November 29, a new state-wide business association could be born. Once the link with Conpymes was broken by the Catalan Pimec, which was a founder, and a group of 18 other organizations, this state entity is beginning to be glimpsed to defend small and medium-sized enterprises. Those who have unsubscribed consider that Conpymes is now left as "a group of friends with little representativeness", while from the organization chaired by José María Torres they ensure that the entities that have left already had an expulsion file open and state that they maintain some 60 organizations as members.

Consummate break. Pimec and 18 other organizations have decided to withdraw from the state employer association Conpymes. With this decision, the Catalan business organization presided over by Antoni Cañete culminates a long period of discrepancies with the entity it helped found in 2021 to act as a counterweight to the CEOE. The Catalan SME association and the others that have chosen to leave and who claim to represent 80% of Conpymes' representation denounce “a prolonged process of irregular management that the entities consider unilateral, undemocratic, and distant from the collective project that motivated their participation”.

Pimec has achieved one of its goals: to become part of the Economic and Social Council (CES), an advisory body to the Spanish government in the socioeconomic and labor sphere. The employers' association, which will hold the representation together with the organization for SMEs of the Balearic Islands (Pimeb), has received a letter from the Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, inviting them to appoint who will occupy their seat in the renewal of the CES promoted by Díaz. Ferran Bel, permanent representative of this business organization in Madrid and former senator and deputy for the PDeCAT, will take the position.

The association of small and medium-sized Catalan enterprises Pimec estimates that the heavy rains of the last few days have generated an economic impact of between 65 and 208 million euros on companies in Vallès Oriental, Barcelonès, Baix Llobregat, Vallès Occidental, and Maresme, according to calculations by the Observatory of the SME of Catalonia. Despite the range, Pimec tends to value the material losses at 117.5 million euros.

The announcement by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, of the dissolution of the Cortes and the call for general elections on November 29th has put the country's productive fabric on alert. The Catalan association of small and medium-sized enterprises, Pimec, has demanded that the main parties ensure the upcoming election campaign serves to "place the productive economy and SMEs at the center of the political debate." In a statement, the organization presided over by Antoni Cañete demanded that "the political situation does not sideline the reforms needed by the productive fabric."

Catalonia is about to put an end to the anomaly of more than a decade of being practically the only autonomous community without its own chamber of commerce law. A curious differential fact. During this time, stages such as Quim Torra's as president of the Generalitat have been experienced, with an attempt at interventionism that brought unions and employers' associations together against it. Or the most recent controversy over the memberships obtained by large companies by paying (the so-called silver chairs).

Pimec has held its annual event in the midst of the housing crisis. And the president of the business organization, Antoni Cañete, has taken advantage of the presence of the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the Minister of Social Security and spokesperson for the Spanish government, Elma Saiz, to warn of the risk of the housing crisis for competitiveness.

The European Commission has drafted a regulation, the Public Procurement Act, which seeks to facilitate SMEs' access to public procurement and avoid the difficulties they currently face in participating in these tenders. Public procurement represents approximately a total of 2.6 trillion euros annually, nearly 15% of the European Union's (EU) gross domestic product (GDP). Pimec applauds the initiative which –it asserts– incorporates the measures it has advocated for during the consultation process and in the definition of European proposals through the SMEunited business association, of which it is a member.

This week, Pimec went to Madrid to defend a law that facilitates business growth. Antoni Cañete, the president of this Catalan employers' organization, is a man who is insistent and persistent in the defense of what he considers affects small and medium-sized enterprises. His phrase is a classic: "SMEs must be on the bridge of command," which means that these companies, which are the main component of the country's industrial and business fabric, must be present in all areas where the regulations and rules that affect them are decided. A sign of this is the constant demand for rules and measures aimed at combating late payments, an evil that stifles many companies, especially the smallest ones and, of course, the self-employed who work as suppliers for larger industries and companies.

Pimec has brought its request for a state law that "rewards business growth instead of penalizing it" to Madrid this Wednesday. The president of Pimec, Antoni Cañete, assured during an event in the state capital that there are entrepreneurs who want to gain scale and who "find themselves with a new obligation, a new administrative burden, or a higher cost precisely when they make the leap." He also warned that "small business size hinders competitiveness in Spain." At the same time, a Pimec report—which includes 348 interviewed companies—shows that 45.3% of companies have not received any aid in the last five years to favor their growth.

Artificial intelligence has already slipped into practically every crack of social life. In recent years, since the entry into play of the first versions of ChatGPT, experts and promoters of the technology have asserted that the ceiling for the implementation of AI solutions is exponential; and that the productivity gains they will generate in the short term are incommensurable with other technological disruptions. In a recent speech before Catalan business leaders, the president of Telefónica, Marc Murtra, asserted that "in thirty years in the world of technology, I had never seen such a rapid impact" as that of AI.

The president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and the Council of Chambers, Josep Santacreu, celebrates the definitive endorsement of the Council of Statutory Guarantees (CGE) for the chambers law. The Catalan norm, which will foreseeably reach the Parliament's plenary session at the beginning of the term after a gestation that has lasted more than a decade, passed the examination at the CGE that the Comuns and CUP parliamentary groups requested in mid-July. The left-wing formations asked for a pronouncement from the CGE a few hours after the tense vote in the plenary of the Barcelona Chamber that served to increase the voluntary contribution seats, known as "silver chairs", from the current two to 10. Now the council's endorsement confirms "the legal solidity of the law", in the words of the president.

The pyrrhic victory of the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, Josep Santacreu, in the vote to expand from two to 10 the vocal positions with the highest voluntary contribution – the so-called silver chairs” – has redefined the composition of the institution's plenary. By reducing the number of elected members by suffrage among the demarcation's entrepreneurs from 52 to 44, regulations require a change in the sectoral distribution of chamber seats.

An important part of the costs that companies assume to improve salaries in line with inflation is not reaching the pockets of workers. This is how the Catalan employers' association for small and medium-sized enterprises, Pimec, details it in a report published this Thursday dedicated to the so-called "fiscal drag, or progressivity in the cold. It is the dysfunction that arises when salary increases associated with price increases do not have a fiscal replica in the form of IRPF deflation. "A perversion occurs, and that is that we raise salaries, but this does not translate into more purchasing power," denounced the president of the business association, Antoni Cañete.

The plenary session of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, meeting this Thursday, has narrowly approved the reform proposed by the executive committee to expand from two to ten the paid vocal seats granted by greater voluntary contribution, the so-called silver chairs. The body was completely divided in the session, with a tie of 29 votes in favor of the measure and 29 against. The decision was unblocked by the casting vote of the president, Josep Santacreu.