The UGT union has described the new proposal from the negotiating commission for the collective agreement of the furniture and auxiliary industry in Gipuzkoa as "insufficient." According to the union, this agreement has gone 25 years without an update, and the "positions are too far apart" in the negotiation process to reach a common goal.
In the fourth meeting of the negotiating commission, held last Monday, the employers' associations Adegi and Arotzgi presented a final proposal that is "on the opposite pole to the objectives" of this union, as indicated by UGT FICA. The union has expressed its "regret" over the "failure" of the negotiating table and has denounced that employers seek to "increase companies' profit margins by cutting rights."
Furthermore, it has pointed out that the employers have offered the CPI increase for the last 25 years, but "without retroactive effect." Therefore, the union states that it is a "mere update of salary scales," and that "the impact of the measure will be very limited," as the vast majority of sector workers are already above these amounts through their company agreements.
Regarding the years 2026, 2027, and 2028, the offer "only contemplates the CPI," the union criticized. It also added that the employers' offer intends to "extend the requirement for collecting the distance bonus from two to 10 kilometers."
The union has denounced that the sector will have to "wait until 2027 for a reduction in working hours to be applied." They recalled that, although the total proposed reduction is 36 hours, it starts from 1,761 annual hours, which is significantly more than 37.5 hours. Additionally, UGT has reminded that they intend to extend from two to five the months in which unworked hours due to lack of workload can be recovered.
