In response to statements by the Minister of Economy, Azucena Arbeleche, who stated that the data provided by COFE on wage loss are “incorrect and do not match reality”, the confederation of state unions reaffirmed that the ideal indicator to determine wage loss ” is the comparison of the salary adjustment with inflation, which is measured through the Consumer Price Index (CPI) prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE)”.
According to COFE, the fact that the Executive Power intends to incorporate the real salary index of the public sector to determine the adjustment of salaries in that sector implies “a change in the measurement criteria historically applied both in the public sector and in the collective agreements in the private sector.
6% wage loss
“The reality shows that on January 1, 2021, the salary adjustment for public workers was 4.41% while the inflation registered during the year 2020 was 9.41%. This represents a salary reduction applied by the government of 5% in the purchasing power of state salaries”, considers COFE.
Meanwhile, “on January 1, 2022, the salary adjustment was 7% while the increase in the CPI for 2021 was 7.96%, which implies a new salary loss of almost 1%. This means that as far as the current government is concerned, the accumulated loss of the purchasing power of the salaries of public workers is more than 6 percentage points”.
In turn, they assure that during the first two years of government, wages fell and wage loss increased. “In the salary adjustment of January 2022 there was no salary recovery percentage since they again adjusted below inflation.”
Correctives by CPI
COFE recalls that the coalition government undertook during the electoral campaign that wages would not be lost and the values registered at the beginning would be maintained. “However, the policy applied has been the salary reduction and the non-recovery of the lost salary.”
The state unions invite both the Minister of Economy, Azucena Arbeleche, and the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, “if they really want there to be no loss of real wages in the period, they agree to sign a collective agreement that establishes how that loss is going to be recovered”, something that they have refused to sign”.
“If the word pledged by the president and what Minister Arbeleche said is really true, we invite this commitment to be established in writing and that at the end of the government period the salary maintains the values of January 1, 2020, applying the corrections by IPC corresponding to each year”, COFE raised through a statement.
