SPAIN’S biggest supermarket chain Mercadona has struck a deal with unions to increase salaries by up to 6% per year through to 2028.
The five-year-deal will see the minimum monthly wage set at €1,507- 20% more than the legal national minimum.
The retailer has built up a reputation as a decent payer and in the last two years gave employees inflation-matching wage rises.
Under the new plan, staff will see salaries raised by the annual inflation rate of up to 2.5%.
If the pace of inflation is higher, Mercadona would permit wage hikes that keep up with inflation only if it meets certain profitability targets, and only up to 6%, according to the CCOO union.
Spain’s annual inflation rate fell to 3.2% in November, down from 3.5% in October as prices of fuels and basic foodstuffs such as bread, eggs and cereals fell, according to the National Statistics Institute.
CCOO representative, Jose Maria Martínez, says that the new agreement shows that ‘through social dialogue, the new labour realities can be adapted with the participation of all sides’.
Mercadona’s Director of Labour Relations, Ruth Garcia, highlighted that ‘this new agreement is the result of the efforts of all parties involved to guarantee the satisfaction of the more than 100,000 people who make up Mercadona’.
The new deal comes into force on January 1 for five years, until the end of 2028.
The retailer recorded a net profit of €718 million in 2022, and its chairman Juan Roig announced last week that he received a gross annual salary of €11 million.
Roig is also Mercadona’s biggest shareholder and will get an extra €22 million of dividends from last year’s net profit total.
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