The first meeting between the Ministry of Labor and the negotiators of the employers and unions concludes without the department headed by Yolanda Díaz specifying what its proposal is for the increase that will take place at the beginning of 2026. According to the workers’ representatives after the meeting of more than two hours that took place this afternoon, the department headed by Yolanda Díaz wanted to explore what room for negotiation the CEOE, CCOO and UGT showed, but without detailing what tax treatment the new minimum wage will have and what rise they propose.
The committee of experts chosen by the Government presented last Friday the report that contained recommendations to carry out an update of the SMI that would keep it at 60% of the average net salary referred to an increase of 3.1% (up to 1,221 euros per month) in the event that it did not pay taxes and 4.7% (up to 1,240 euros per month) if it was decided that this salary level began to pay personal income tax. The unions had proposed weeks before 2.7% or 7.5% depending on which of the two scenarios materialized and CEOE 1.5% from which they would deduct personal income tax.
That is why the negotiators expected that Labor would come to this meeting with the unknowns cleared up and with a position agreed upon with the Treasury on the taxation of the minimum wage, however, the ministry has not made reference to this issue. In fact, sources from the Department of Labor conveyed this idea the same day that the academics and Government representatives presented the report with the two recommendations. In the previous negotiation, Labor agreed on the highest percentage and then The Treasury decided that it should be exemptHowever, all of this sparked an intense public debate that we want to avoid on the eve of several electoral events.
In this context, despite not sharing the technical criteria used by the group of experts to point to this recommendation, the unions have shown themselves open to signing an agreement that includes the 3.1% increase that equals the inflation figure for the month of October. “The CPI figure is within the parameters of the average net salary that we were calculating and It can obviously be an element of approximation towards the agreement“said the Secretary of Trade Union Action of CCOO, Javier Pacheco, this afternoon. However, UGT has not commented on the figure directly, waiting to know the proposal from Díaz’s department.
The unions emphasize that it is a priority that the minimum wage equals 60% of the average wage and also that this salary reaches the workers’ pockets “in full”, an expression with which they refer to their request to modify labor regulations to prevent companies from cut or eliminate extras that the employee has recognized (such as dangerousness or languages) to accommodate increases in the minimum wage to their salaries. Labor opts to leave this matter for a second decree and approve the increase more quickly, which could lead to a Council of Ministers before the end of the year.
CEOE and Cepyme also hoped to find out this Tuesday what the ministry’s specific proposal was, after maintaining informal contacts to address this matter. Although, none of the parties expect that businessmen will be able to join the signing of the next SMI, due to the distance between their proposal and those of the experts and above all, because the business organizations conditioned their offer of raising it to 1.5% on absorption and compensation rules were maintained of the complements that the Government committed to the unions to eliminate a year ago.
Sources present in the negotiation explain that a large part of the meeting has revolved around the technical debate on the methodology to estimate the 60% of the average salary to which the SMI is linked. As this newspaper reported, the unions They were dissatisfied with the formula adopted ultimately by the group of experts, which used the Salary Structure Survey and then used the Quarterly Labor Cost Survey (ECTL) to update the data to the year 2025. This year the interannual data was used and not the weighted average of the last quarters, which generated a distance of several points between the unions’ proposal and that of this committee.
The drafting of the minimum wage directive, which the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) recently examined, and the changes that Labor wants to introduce in this framework, such as the aforementioned limitation on the absorption of bonuses, the obligation for companies to provide workers’ representatives with business margins before starting an agreement negotiation or the consolidation of the group of experts as an advisor to the Executive before adopting a decision on the minimum wage. Labor, therefore, reserves the specific proposal for an increase for a future meeting whose date has yet to be determined.
