More pay pain in Spain

The Spanish government has announced a public sector pay freeze for 2015. It will be the fifth year in succession that Spain’s public sector workers have not had a pay rise, and it comes on top of pay cuts of 5% in 2010.

The government has said that it will restore part of the additional Christmas bonus which public sector employees lost in 2012. Public sector staff, like all Spanish workers, used to receive 14 monthly payments, with an extra month’s basic pay both at Christmas and in the summer.

When the payment was removed, the government promised that in 2015 it would make increased pension payments of an equivalent amount to the bonus lost. However, it is a broken promise, as only part of the payment — probably 25% — will be restored and only in central government not across the whole public sector.

The unions are outraged at the decision. The general secretaries of the two largest union confederations — Ignacio Fernández Toxo (CCOO) and Cándido Méndez (UGT) — stating that employees have a right to “self-defence” if their pay is again frozen.

• The decision of the Spanish government comes a less than a month after the Italian government said it planned to freeze public sector pay in 2015. Public sector workers there have seen their pay frozen since 2010.