“You have to forget about the minimum wage.” That amount that is just enough to buy a basic food basket is not enough, “people were not born just to eat, they have dignity, they have aspirations,” said businessman Enrique Terrazas Seyfferet. This Wednesday, social and business organizations presented three proposals for minimum remunerations, one of them aspires to payments from 9,500 pesos per month.
“It is a movement that begins today and is going to take generations. It is a change of culture (business) ”, said the real estate entrepreneur. The next November 25, the Council of Representatives of the National Commission for Minimum Wages (Conasami) will formally begin the discussion to analyze the increase in this indicator for next year.
The federal government has confirmed that it will maintain its policy of hikes, so that in 2024 the General Minimum Wage (SMG) is 226 pesos per day. That is, more than 6,800 pesos a month for most of the country. At the beginning of this six-year term, the SMG barely exceeded 2,600 pesos per month.
A few days ago, the group of social organizations Acción Ciudadana Frente a la Pobreza (ACFP) sent its technical proposal for SMG 2022 to Conasami. That body asks that the benchmark go from 141.70 pesos a day, the amount in force in 2021, to 185.20 pesos a day for the following year, an increase of 30 percent. This would imply raising the current monthly salary from 4,307 to 5,630 pesos.
And the project companies Companies for Well-being, headed by Arturo Zapata Guizar, propose a minimum wage of 7,000 a month from now on. Like the Mexico Digno initiative, which goes for 9,500 pesos per month, it is aimed at the employers, so that the employer organizations assume their responsibility to grant decent wages.
“Of every 10 jobs that are generated in Mexico, 8 are generated by us. That way we could have the solution and not wait to see what the government does, ”said Enrique Terrazas.
The organizations proposal
In recent decades the minimum wage lost 70% of its purchasing power, recalled Rogelio Gómez Hermosillo, coordinator of ACFP and the Observatory of Worthy Work (OTD). The increases, when there were, were below inflation. By 2022 this will not be possible, as Congress amended the Federal Labor Law (LFT) so that the annual increases are always above the rise in consumer prices.
“The job insecurity it became one of the main characteristics for millions of people ”, he pointed out. According to the OTD, after the most difficult period of the covid-19 pandemic, unemployment continues to affect 10.3 million, mainly women and young people.
66% of male and female workers lack a sufficient salary to support their family, this represents about 33 million people. That same number of employed people do not have social security.
The calculation of the salary increase proposed by Acción Ciudadana is made up of the percentage increase in the prices of the basic food basket. “Not so much inflation in general, but the rise in the cost of basic basket, which is what sets the poverty threshold ”, according to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval).
In addition, it includes the amount of 35 pesos as the Independent Recovery Amount (MIR). In this way, it reaches 185 pesos a day, more than 5,600 pesos a month by 2022.
The one already underway: $ 7,000 a month
“It is up to us, the businessmen, to change this, it is not something that only the government should solve. When we create a company, the idea is that all who contribute and put their work can access a decent standard of living”Said Arturo Zapata, member of the Executive Commission of the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex).
At the online meeting, Arturo Zapara presented the relaunch of the Companies for Wellbeing initiative. In 2019, with 100 companies integrated into the project, they committed that they would not pay salaries lower than 6,500 pesos per month. In that year, despite the fact that the SMG had its first real increase, going from 88 to 102 pesos a day for most of the country, per month that means an amount of just over 3,100 pesos.
Most of the grouped, medium and large companies invited others to join this project, regardless of the increase agreed upon in Conasami. But a few months later it came the pandemic to the country, “it was not the right moment, it would have been insensitive on our part” to ask the organizations for a salary increase, he said.
To build this minimum amount, they took into account that in 2019, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), 1.8 people worked in Mexican families. For a family of four to rise above the poverty line, they would have to have an income of 12,000 pesos per monthAccording to Coneval, “that amount and we divide it by 1.8 and that puts us at 6,500 pesos” to pay to each person.
Two years later, “the figure is adjusted to 7,000 pesos”. Since then, more companies have joined and now there are 170 in 14 states that have already adjusted their salaries to that amount.
The impact on cost of your payroll it has been 4%, he reported. “It could be a significant percentage, but in reality it is far below the impact on families, whose lives we change.” The businessman encouraged others to raise salaries. “You may feel that it affects you, but when all the companies do it, those families will be consumers, that is reinvested, it becomes a virtuous circle.”
“It is not opulence, it is living with dignity”: $ 9,500
Finally, the initiative Worthy Mexico it is based on a study “where we saw how much it costs a family of 4 to live with dignity. In other words, eat, dress and buy medicine, nothing more. And it was 19,000 pesos ”per month, explained Enrique Terrazas.
This long-term project consists of two stages, he said. “It may take several years, and maybe in about 15 we will have a worthy Mexico. The first phase will be to raise awareness among businesswomen and businessmen, and even students. “To win 9,500 pesos per month It is not living in opulence, but with dignity. “
When schools teach how to create a company “they talk to the young people about the human Resources. But they are not resources, they are people. Workers are never taken into account as people in the business plan ”.
Therefore, the second stage is to provide advice “to make a business plan that puts people at the center of the company, that their dignity is at the center.” Raising salaries would improve many areas of the country, such as education, and “we would have a better democracy, because when there is no poverty, everything works better,” said the businessman who has sought positions of popular representation in Chihuahua.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx