After two weeks of arduous negotiations, the administration of Governor Martín Llaryora closed a laborious joint agreement with the state unions, which in April salaries will have a fiscal impact of 13.8 billion pesos on provincial finances.
In a context of falling own collection and also federal co-participation funds, the salary discussion with the state ones became a state issue, which was followed very closely by the governor himself.
To measure the fiscal impact of the almost 14 billion pesos that the provincial Treasury must contribute to pay the April salary increase, there are two figures to take into account: due to the unilateral decision of Anses not to send funds to the Retirement Fund , there are almost 13 billion pesos that the Government of Córdoba must allocate to pay the provincial liabilities.
On the other hand, in the event that the fiscal package that accompanies the “base law” is approved, with the revision of Income Taxes, Córdoba will receive about 12 billion pesos more in federal co-participation.
That is, if the law is approved with these changes in Profits, those funds will go directly to cover the salary agreement with the state, closed last Monday.
The agreement was with the nine unions of the central administration, since the teachers (UEPC) have a current joint agreement, which will expire on May 30.
The consensus with the state was closed on the basis of the 8.5% increase that teachers will receive, with April salaries, which will be paid this week.
Although some sectors, especially those with lower incomes, which are mostly affiliated with the Public Employees Union (SEP), the salary increase reaches 10% in April.
In the negotiation, provincial officials handled numbers that set the course of the discussion: each point of salary increase for public employees means about 1.6 billion pesos per month. While a non-remunerative increase point is 1,000 million pesos.
Hence, in some cases, there was a 5% increase in remuneration, and another 3.5% that will be transferred to the base in future salary discussions.
Ceiling
The provincial government’s negotiators had the agreement signed with the UEPC as their ceiling.
If there was an increase greater than the 8.5% agreed for April with the UEPC, it also had to be transferred to teachers.
The representatives of Governor Llaryora at the joint table, the Secretary General of the Interior, David Consalvi, who carried the weight of the discussions, with the participation of the Minister of Government, Manuel Calvo, and the close monitoring of the numbers of the Minister of Finance, Guillermo Acosta, applied a new negotiation strategy: discussing by union and by sector.
Although the state unions maintained a unified position of demanding the total of March inflation (11%) that was taken into account in the discussion of the increase for April, plus the provisional suspension of the discount of some of the discounts for Anses ( see separately), in reality, the negotiation was individual with each union.
What’s more, at the discussion table, the official negotiators put on the table the maximum amount of increase that the Government was willing to grant for each sector, and the union members decided the way of distributing those resources between the different categories.
For example, for the lowest categories, fixed sums are more convenient, as is the case with some sectors of the SEP.
On the other hand, in the case of the hierarchical ones, which represents the union of the Superior Personal Union (UPS), they reject fixed sums and prefer percentage and remuneration increases, which reach the passive sector. This union led by Domingo Ovando was the first to sign the agreement, last Saturday, so that the security forces (Police) could collect increased salaries last Tuesday.
The provincial government closed the joint discussion with the public administration unions last Monday, but in the first week of June it will have to sit down to negotiate with the teachers (UEPC).
Another of the strategies of the Llaryorist officials was to take off the discussion with the rest of the state teachers. Precisely, negotiation with the UEPC tends to be more complicated, taking into account that the agreement must go through a provincial assembly of delegates, in which opposition to the leadership of the union usually has a lot of weight.
Apross: they suspended a discount
Beyond the percentage increase, discounts for state social work (Apross) played a role in this joint discussion between the provincial government and the state unions.
The unions have been demanding for months for discounts from two funds that impact salaries: for catastrophic illnesses and chronic illnesses, as the state calls it, but which in reality is the Solidarity Fund for Care for Emerging Diseases and Technological Innovation (Fosaet ).
The first fund had been discounted for a long time, but Fosaet was implemented by this Llaryorist administration, with the objective of covering the more than 5,000 million pesos deficit that Apross had in April.
In the joint agreement it was agreed that the Fosaet discount is suspended until July 1.
It is not eliminated as the unions intended. In July, it will be charged again but not as a fixed sum as it was in February (4,700 pesos) for each card of the holder’s family members and adherents. It will be a progressive discount, according to the level of salaries.
It will start at 2,970 pesos for the lowest incomes, and will reach the aforementioned 4,700 pesos for those who earn more than 800 thousand pesos in salary.
Although from the first day of next July these base amounts for the Fosaet discount will be updated according to the salary increases that have been agreed for the previous quarter, that is, April-June.
