On Sunday, December 15, 2024, the first deadline for the Permanent Commission for Coordination of Salary and Labor Policies reach an agreement on increasing the minimum wage in the country by 2025. The conclusion? There is still no consensus.
(See: ‘Businessmen continue to contradict Dane’s productivity figures’: CUT).
This was announced this Monday the 16th, when Gloria Inés Ramírez, the Minister of Labor, reported that The positions of businessmen and labor unions are very distant.
“I have to tell the country that there is no agreement and that there are big differences in the proposals“added Ramírez.
It is already known from the labor unions that the increase they are asking for is 12% and Fabio Arias, president of the Unitary Central of Workers (CUT), has already warned that they will remain firm with their proposal.
“As long as the businessmen do not propose anything, we will be there. We are one of the pessimists. Some unions that do not propose anything at the table, that do not even accept the data and results of the Dane, in an unusual fact, because they had always accepted them and now they contradict it, I do not believe that there is a greater spirit of concertation among them“he stated.
(See: Minimum wage 2025: companies and unions still cannot reach an agreement, according to Mintrabajo).
Arias’ comment is in line with what, until now, There is no known official increase proposal from the business sector.
Given this, Rodolfo Correa, national executive president of the Colombian Business Association (Acopi), explained that, according to law 278 of 1996, in the eighth article, “The vote of the sector is taken by the majority of its members. That is to say, the business community has made the decision not to make the figure public, so that the offer that Acopi had made at the time, within the framework of the possibility that was available, was subject to all of the unions agreeing. OK“.
And he added: “We are five members and in order for there to be a figure from the sector, not from Acopi, the majority of the votes of that sector is required, which has made the decision that there is no figure. It is not that there is a retraction, because at the time that possibility was allowed, but in this instance, the reality is that we must talk about the sectoral vote and, as a sectoral vote, we want to say that Acopi is not going to break the union unity of the country“.
(See: The CUT remains firm in its 12% proposal for increasing the minimum in 2025).
Acopi, individually, proposed an increase of 5.2%.
Minimum wage consultation table 2025
Ministry of Labor
The position of businessmen
Although businessmen have remained silent regarding a proposal to increase the minimum, this Tuesday, December 17, 2024, it emerged that the sector would have put on the table an increase of 6.83% u 88,790 pesos, which would leave the figure at 1,388,790 pesos by 2025.
In this regard, the president of Acopi himself said on ‘Caracol Radio’ that “We must be very clear: the business associations that submitted a proposal did so confidentially. I have seen that figures have been circulated and the only thing I can say is that we are fully willing to negotiate, we believe in dialogue. It doesn’t seem easy, but we believe in dialogue“.
(See: Minimum wage 2025: this is how it could look with the double-digit increase).
Bruce Mac Master, president of the National Association of Industrialists (Andi), For his part, he assured Portafolio that there is no proposal for an increase and that they asked Minister Ramírez “to look for approaches (with the workers’ confederations) and tell us“.
Minimum wage consultation table 2025
Ministry of Labor
Minimum wage negotiations
Negotiations for the increase in the minimum wage continued this Tuesday, December 17 with the discussion of the caveats. At the meeting, the parties defended their upward positions.
If an agreement is not reached by Wednesday, December 18, The possibility that the increase is by decree of the National Government would be the way.
The president of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, spoke on the subject on December 12 and stated that “lIn the absence of a labor reform approved by Congress, it must be compensated by the minimum wage. The production credit policy in the public sector must substantially prioritize associative credit to the popular economy, as a vector of economic reactivation”.
(See: Minimum wage 2025: Petro’s position is that the increase is ‘significant’).
CAMILO HERNÁNDEZ M.
Digital Portfolio Editor
