Supermarkets and SMEs warn that it is impossible to meet the new commercial parity and talk about layoffs

The adjustment of trade paritarias, which provided for an additional 20% increase in three installments and led the sector collective agreement to a 45% wage increase, had already caused the first sparks among employers. Less than 24 hours after the conclusion of the agreement with the guild led by Armando Cavalieri.

That is because for many companies, mainly SMEs, it is impossible to badume the additional increase in wages, due to the sharp decline in sales and the wave of crisis prevention and plant closure procedures. .

The new wage agreement was signed by the Argentine Chamber of Commerce and Services (CAC), the Argentinean Medium Enterprises Coordinator (CAME) and the Trade Union of Business Entities of Argentina (UDECA) on the business side, as well as than by the Argentine Federation. Trade and Service Employees (FAECyS) in the labor sector.

"This puts us in an extremely serious situation and can also have negative consequences for businesses and workers," said Juan Vasco Martinez, executive director of the United Supermarkets Association of the newspaper El Cronista, adding that "in the crisis is the sector, all companies are with numbers in red ".

Fernando Aguirre, spokesman for the Argentine Chamber of Supermarkets (CAS) and the Argentine Federation of Supermarkets and Self-Service (FASA), said that "there is a concern because many companies can not not pay this increase ".

Although he admitted that people "deserved an increase" because of the sharp erosion of purchasing power, "companies can not pay this increase because their income has fallen sharply", he declared.

In the end, the complaints denounce a certain discomfort of the companies, which consider not to have been consulted before the signing of the agreement, which forces them in any case to face the compromise. The approval by the Ministry of Production and Labor is still pending, while the business sector badyzes the steps to follow.

Aguirre recalled that "the increase is added to the end-of-year bonus" in a virtual vicious circle in which, if people do not have money, they can not buy , the super sells less and so can not pay more wages, and if he does not pay more wages, people can not buy.

"We have had to reduce our payroll over the past few months and we will have to continue to do it if it is necessary to apply this increase," said a senior manager of a large company in the industry. retail sale.

The general manager of another company in the sector pointed out that it was already complicated to pay the bonus that the government had ordered, which had now to add the update of the parity. "We will be forced to reduce our allocation to cope with this increase because in a recessionary context, it is impossible to transfer this higher cost to prices and there is no return to it. absorb".

According to another important distribution chain, "it is absurd to pay 45% of the annual increase in parity in an area where sales volumes have fallen by about 40% since July and already exceeded 50% from the fall in November ".

Pedro Cascales, press officer of CAME, one of the entities that signed the agreement, said that "most companies could not pay the adjustment and the bonus", not to mention and that some people would have difficulty paying the bonus. . Asked about why CAME had signed the agreement in this context, Cascales said "that there was no alternative, it was signed in March that we were going to sit in November, but no one expected inflation to be 45 percent. "

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