After arduous negotiations, trade unions representing commercial, metallurgical, construction and public sector workers reached an agreement on collective salary bargains for the current year.
The official signing of the collective bargains will take place tomorrow at Government House, in an act witnessed by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Sources from the unions and business chambers confirmed to ámbito.com that the deals had been struck, in talks which had originally been scheduled to take place in the Labour Ministry but were moved later to Economy.
The agreement means that the planned strike of 36 hours called by the Metallurgical Workers’ Union (UOM), will be abandoned, marking a turn in the fortunes of collective salary negotiations which until recently had advanced at a slow pace.
Under the terms of the deal, metallurgical employees will receive a 17 percent raise backdated to April and another 10 percent in July, with the total increase 27.5 percent. The agreement will also eliminate the «entry-level» position, a junior position which lasts six months before workers join the general scale.
With the raise, the basic salary in the sector will move to 8,500 pesos per month.
Spokesmen from the Commercial union, meanwhile, revealed that their agreement constituted a 17 percent raise in April and a further 10 percent in November, plus two one-off payments of 1,524 pesos in July and September.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald