CIP: minimum wage of 540 euros
António Saraiva, CIP’s president, will submit a proposal offer of ten euros in minimum wage, to 540 euros. And only accepts a larger rise if there are quid pro quos for companies.
The Portuguese Industry Confederation – CIP – will submit a proposal offer for a national minimum wage of 540 euros, according to ECO, meaning an increase of ten euros, which is still far from the 557 euros goal negotiated between the government, BE (Left Block) and PCP (Portuguese Communist Party).
This proposal has not yet been formalized, and in spite of not submitting specific numbers, António Saraiva has already presented his terms for a salary increase that “does not surpass 550 euros”.
As a general rule, companies must always give a social security contribution of 23.75%, which means, adding up the 530 euros minimum wage, yearly costs are of around 9,182 euros. However, there is now a 0.75 percentage point’s reduction of the Taxa Social Única (TSU – Single Social Tax, a monthly payment made by companies per worker to Social Security) of companies who pay minimum wages, which allows for a lower impact of 9,126.6 euros in yearly costs. Having a minimum wage of 540 euros, contributions would ascend to 9,356 euros per year (or 9,299 euros if TSU remains at 0.75).
The companies and us [CIP], who represent them, are the ones who know the state of the art, if I may say, [it is us] that know what is bearable. Because increasing minimum wage to 557 euros represents a rise of 5%. If the economy is expected to grow 1%…
Therefore, more relevant efforts would be required, namely the guarantee that labor laws on the Portuguese Labor Code will not be reversed – for example, concerning overtime (Banco de Horas – Time Bank) and concerning the end of revocation of collective labor agreements (agreements between companies and trade unions).
On October 20th, the Conselho Económico Social (CES – Economic and Social Council) will have its social concertation meeting (between the government and Trade Union Confederations and Employers’ Associations). Mário Centeno, minister of Finance, will attend the meeting to present the 2017 State Budget draft – therefore, discussing minimum wage should be postponed to November.
