collective

The objective of collective agreements is to regulate the rules of the game of certain sectors or large companies by establishing the salaries they will receive employees in that sector. However, in 2026, almost half of these agreements are encountering a serious problem: they are obsolete. The interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) has been rising non-stop for eight years. It has gone from 735 euros per month in 2018 to 1,221 current euros In 14 payments, a cumulative increase of 66%. Many of these sectoral agreements, negotiated for months, have been stillborn, becoming obsolete due to estimating the lowest salaries below the legal minimum, as is how I collected The Economist. Almost one out of every two agreements, below the SMI. The data is clear. According to a UGT analysisthe SMI exceeds the agreed salary for the lowest categories in 45% of the 2026 sectoral agreements that were registered during the first quarter of 2026, with minimums that are already below of the new SMI. The measure affects, for example, agreements such as the gardenerwhich in January 2026 was approved with a salary of 1,184 euros for laborers and apprentices, that is, adjusted to the 2025 SMI, but does not include the new amount for 2026. In company agreements the proportion of outdated agreements drops slightly, but the problem persists. Of the 25 agreements published in that same period, 9 (36%) also had salary tables below the legal minimum. They are agreements signed after months of negotiation that, in the end, need an extra complement to comply with the law. What the law says. No agreement can set salaries below the SMI in annual calculation. The Supreme Court clarified it in 2025: what counts is the annual total, adding all the concepts. Not just the base salary. If between the base salary and the bonuses it reaches 17,094 euros per year that establishes the SMI of 2026the company would be complying with the legislation. If not, it is obliged to make up the difference through an additional salary supplement. This is the formula that many companies use to comply with the increase in the SMI when, as happened in 2026, this increase is approved with the year already begun, and even when the agreement they apply has come into force that same year. This increase is not always an extra cost for the company (if they already paid more than that SMI with bonuses included). But it is a sign that many of these agreements are governed by remuneration so adjusted to the legal minimum that the minimum correction leaves them outside the regulations. The problem of overlap between categories. Moving in this area of ​​minimum wages leaves a collateral effect that worries unions. When the SMI rises faster than the agreements, the lowest salary categories end up receiving salaries very close to those of the higher ones. A laborer and a first-class officer, with very different tasks and knowledge, can end up with very close salaries at the end of the month due to the compression effect that occurs from below. That is, companies raise the lowest salaries only to comply with the regulations, but not the ranges immediately above in the same proportion. UGT calls it “overlapping” and has been asking for a new agreement to be negotiated for some time. Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) with the representatives of the employers’ association to organize these scales. Some agreements already have clauses to avoid this. He consulting and technology agreementfor example, sets a margin of 80 euros of minimum difference between each level affected by the SMI and the next. That is, if the lower salary ranges rise to comply with the SMI, that increase is transferred upwards proportionally to the rest of the categories. Who wins and who notices it more. The rise in the SMI has improved purchasing power of workers with lower incomes. Between 2018 and 2026, minimum wages have grown by 66% compared to an accumulated inflation of 25%which has made it possible to cushion the loss of purchasing power of those with the lowest salaries. However, if companies do not compensate for the differences between the lowest salaries and the following categories, there is a risk of discourage promotion of employees, who see that the increase in responsibilities is not compensated with a large difference in salary at the end of the month. In Xataka | Finding a job had always been a good way to escape poverty: in Spain it is no longer true Image | Unsplash (Ivan Henao)