Increase in the Minimum Interprofessional Wage by 2022
Royal Decree 152/2022 of 22 February has established a Minimum Interprofessional Wage for 2022 of 1,000 euros per month.
Today, Wednesday 23 February, the new Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI) has been published in the Official State Bulletin (Boletín Oficial del Estado) setting an amount of €1,000 per month for 14 payments (€33.33 per day or €14,000 per year) with effect from 1 January 2022.
It should be remembered that the SMI guarantees, as a minimum, that workers receive the official amount fixed annually in exclusively monetary salary concepts, and that this amount cannot be reduced by salaries in kind or extra-salary concepts such as allowances or transport costs.
Likewise, the revision of the minimum interprofessional wage approved will not affect the structure or the amount of the professional salaries that workers have been receiving when such salaries as a whole and on an annual basis are higher than said minimum wage.
In relation to the previous paragraph, it is worth noting a recent Supreme Court ruling (SOCIAL Ruling No. 74/2022, Supreme Court, Social Division, Section 1, Rec 89/2020 of 26 January 2022) in which companies have been endorsed so that they can raise the Minimum Interprofessional Wage by absorbing the seniority bonuses in order to supplement the worker’s salary to reach that figure.
In this way, the seniority bonuses that workers will receive will not be added to the increase in the SMI, but will be included in it, provided that the agreement does not state otherwise.
The High Court pointed out in its ruling that if the application of the SMI were not interpreted in this sense, “the revision of the SMI would have a multiplying effect on all collective agreements whose basic salaries were lower than the SMI, which would thus become a basic salary, or fixed salary per unit of time for all workers whose basic salaries under the agreement or contractually agreed were lower than the SMI for each year, which would radically modify their legal nature“. It also adds that itwould “violate the role of collective bargaining as a natural space for wage setting” and would leave in the hands of the government the decision on“the amount of basic wages or wages per unit of time, regardless of what is agreed in collective agreements or employment contracts“.
The same Royal Decree 152/2022 also establishes the SMI for workers included in the special regime for family household services.
Thus, for those domestic workers who work by the hour, in an external regime, the minimum wage will be 7.82 euros per hour effectively worked. Regarding the SMI per legal working day in the activity, for temporary and seasonal workers, it may not be less than 47.36 €. This new amount of 1,000 euros represents an increase of 3.63 % with respect to the SMI for 2021 (approved in September last year – RD 817/2021).
These increases reflect the government’s intention to give effect to the right to a fair and sufficient remuneration that provides workers and their families with a sufficient standard of living, in line with the European Committee of Social Rights, which has interpreted this threshold as 60% of the average wage of a country’s workers.
Contrary to the spirit in which this was intended, it should be noted that the agreement has only been signed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy and the heads of the CCOO and UGT trade union organisations.
On the other hand, the employers’ organisation CEOE has refused to endorse the agreement, citing its manifest disagreement due to the current economic situation of the country and the events of the last few months with regard to the pandemic.
The Labour Management department of AddVANTE remains at your disposal for further information or to resolve any queries that may arise in relation to this article.
