The agreement signed in the province of Las Palmas between the unions CCOO, UGT and the hospitality employers' association, which led to the cancellation of the general strike in this same province, has been presented as an improvement in the working and salary conditions of the workers in the sector. However, nothing could be further from the truth: the agreement signed is even below the salary recommendations made by the unions themselves and the CEOE at the state level.
To understand the reasons that led to the call - more symbolic than real - for the general strike in the eastern islands, we must go back to the signing of the current Provincial Hospitality Agreement 2020-2025. This agreement established the freezing of wages during 2020 and 2021, and increases of between 2% and 3% per year in the following three years, adding up to a meager 7.25% increase for the six years of validity. During this same period, inflation in the Canary Islands exceeded 19%, more than 11.75 points above the agreed increase, which in practice has meant a substantial loss of purchasing power for workers.
With the recent agreement, which adds an increase of 2.75% to the 2.25% planned for this year and promises an additional 4% for the following year, the bureaucratic apparatus of UGT and CCOO have tried to sell it as a great achievement that would mean a salary improvement of 9%. However, what has really been done is to equate salaries with what was agreed in the V Agreement for Collective Bargaining signed at the state level in May 2023 by CCOO, UGT, CEOE and CEPYME. This agreement established increases of 10% for the years 2023, 2024 and 2025, a percentage that, added to what was already agreed in the agreement, is reached in the Canary Islands... but with a two-year delay!
The biggest "mistake", to put it somehow, of UGT and CCOO has been not to include a salary review clause in the previous agreement, an error that they do not intend to correct in the new negotiation either, according to the content of the latest agreement.
It is surprising that, during the negotiation of the sector agreement, the majority unions accepted without opposition the neoliberal theses of the employers, aimed at freezing wages and containing spending on personnel, even contravening the guidelines set by their own organizations in Madrid, which were committed to the recovery of purchasing power, competitiveness and employment.
Analyzing the situation carefully, it is evident that both the Canary Islands employers and the signatory unions are jointly responsible for the progressive impoverishment of hospitality workers and, consequently, for the excessive enrichment of the employers. The agreement that called off the strike in Las Palmas is nothing more than a band-aid on a broken bone, presented as a triumph what is no more than a handout, far from the demands initially raised by the Hospitality Trade Union Board.
But the absurdity does not end here. In their eagerness to disguise the agreement and hang undeserved medals, the signatories included in the text the supposed implementation of mechanized beds in certain hotel establishments, intending to
demonstrate a concern for occupational health, especially for chambermaids. However, they fail to point out that this measure is pending approval in the Parliament of the Canary Islands through amendments supported by groups such as Las Kellys, within the framework of the modification of the Tourism Planning Law of the Canary Islands, and that it also provides for public subsidies to hotel companies that adopt these improvements.
In conclusion, the agreement signed in Las Palmas contains a lot of literature and little real content. It does not restore lost purchasing power, nor does it guarantee significant advances in labor rights. The signatory unions never had a real intention of sustaining a strike that was shaping up to be successful. In contrast, in Tenerife the strike was maintained, driven by the firm will of the assembly of workers called by the majority union in the province, Sindicalistas de Base de Canarias. Subsequently, UGT and CCOO, in an act of opportunism, joined the call in Tenerife, playing at being combative unions while in Las Palmas they acted with submission and complicity towards the employers, signing agreements to the downside, ceding rights and endorsing wage freezes that have contributed directly to the imbalance in the redistribution of wealth in our community.
Signed. Juan Luis Jiménez Camilleri
Island General Secretary of the FSOC in Lanzarote
Secretary of Trade Union Action of the Canary Islands Trade Union Federation
