The General Union of Workers (UGT) will promote in the next agreement for employment and collective bargaining (the current one ends in 2025) that the price of housing be a structural indicator when negotiating wage increases within the framework of collective bargaining.
This was indicated by the Deputy Secretary General of Trade Union Policy of UGT, Fernando Luján, this Monday during the presentation of the study 'The high price of housing eats up wages' prepared by the union and collected in the news portal of Idealista.com.
Luján stressed that housing is a "basic right", so the difficulties in accessing it must "count" when regulating the salaries set in collective agreements.
Along with housing, Luján believes it is necessary that the data from the Observatory of Business Margins also be taken into account for setting salaries in collective agreements, as they offer an accurate picture of the real evolution of business profits.
On the issue, the Deputy Secretary General of UGT, Lola Navarro, indicated that the union will first make a diagnosis of the collective agreements in order to build "any type of claim" from there.
The report prepared by UGT warns that salaries should double in some sectors and territories so that mortgage payments are below 40% (10 points above what is recommended by the Housing Law) of the net salary of many workers.
Currently, a worker needs more than 52 years of net salary (dedicating 40% of it) to buy an average home. In the case of rent, the situation worsens and in sectors such as hospitality, commerce or cleaning, a worker has to allocate 100% of their net salary to pay the rent in cities such as Madrid or Barcelona.
In this way, of the 195 cases analyzed in the study by UGT, only in 15% of the cases does the rent represent less than 40% of the net salary.
"In each and every one of the cases, in all the purchase and rental prices that we have reported, except in some small city like Cáceres, in the rest of the places, it is not possible to access a house in a rental regime or access a house in property", Luján stated.
In this line, the unionist has warned that tourist housing is increasing the price of rent, but also the price of housing, and has asked to control this "vicious circle".
In addition, he stressed that the price of housing is increasing the average age of emancipation, which is already at 30 years, almost 4 years above the European average, and only 14.8% of young people live outside the family home, the worst figure since 2006. "Only 25% of young people aged 30 can access a home," he warned.
During the press conference, the UGT unionist warned that housing problems are also impacting vacancies, because workers do not move to places where labor is needed because they do not have a home.
"If access to housing in the Balearic Islands is above 1,100 euros in any of the regimes we can, the income or the rent, what salary should be paid to a worker to want to go to work there?", Luján stressed.
