The minimum wage is a safety net, emphasized the Minister of Labour, Niki Kerameos, speaking to ERT, pointing out that “yes to the social partners agreeing on something better, more favorable for the workers, but we must have a safety net to ensure the case of not come to an agreement”.

As he said “Well, our answer is this: Certainly, free negotiations of the social partners, but from 950 and above a minimum thresholdsafety net, which will be at least 950 and the threshold may be higher depending on what the so-called mathematical formula produces. So we say free negotiations of the social partners, but a safety net. Why? Because something very important, which the opposition does not discuss, is predictability, predictability for the worker, who will do his family planning, predictability for the company that wants to do its business planning.

I can’t understand either and I ask her directly opposition: why do they mind having this safety net? To be able to say that no worker in the country will fall below 950 euros[…] The social partners may come and say I don’t like 950, I want 1,000, 1,100, I want 1,200. They are free to do so, but we have a debt, we secure the bargaining floor, the threshold, so that no worker watching us right now has less than that […] Yes to the social partners agreeing something better, more favorable to workers, but we must have a safety net to ensure that no agreement is reached[…]».

At another point, Ms. Kerameos regarding bottom calculation algorithm stated that this algorithm is equivalent to that which has been in force in France for 70 years. “France has had this formula for this net for 70 years, 70 years and this formula that we follow is the French formula with a very small variation which is in favor of the worker, but it has this formula that takes into account in other words, as prices rise, this threshold rises and as the productivity of the economy increases, the minimum wage rises again[…]».

“We want to encourage the conclusion of collective agreements”

With reference to collective agreements, he noted that “The directive actually has two axes. The first axis concerns how to determine the minimum wage. The second axis concerns how we can collectively encourage the conclusion of collective labor agreements as a European Union. We want that, we want to encourage them. So let’s discuss criteria on the basis of which we can motivate more social partners to enter into collective labor agreements. Our instruction says you have one year. A year to discuss this in depth with the social partners about what incentives you can put in place. We will do this from December 2024, until next year we will discuss in depth. The directive tells us with social partners. I will add that we will also seek to discuss this issue with the political parties to see how we can, for example, further strengthen the institutional framework of collective bargaining[…].

“[…] There are two things required of collective agreements. One is an institutional framework, which will be favorable, motivating employee and employer representatives to enter into collective agreements. Let’s say in the tourism and catering sector in our country we have two bright examples, I would say, of a collective agreement that has been concluded[…] So we want collective agreements. We will therefore take care to strengthen the institutional framework with incentives that will favor the conclusion of collective agreements. But that is not enough. They also need to sit at the same table workers and employers and agree as they did in tourism and catering, in an excellent way, respectively it is important to strengthen this culture[…]».

“We have rapidly reduced non-salary costs”

“One side of the coin we are discussing is the minimum wage and how we can strengthen the workers more. But the other side is the non-salary cost so that precisely this policy does not come at the expense of stimulating employment. That is why, in the last five and a half years, this government has carried out a systematic, I would say rapid, reduction of non-salary costs. What are non-wage costs? The insurance contributions paid by the employees and the employer for each job.

»We had one of the highest in Europe in 2019. Since then, insurance contributions have been reduced by 5.5 points in total, along with the latest one that is being voted on right now. These days, an additional percentage point reduction in insurance contributions is being voted. So we reduce non-salary costs. And then there’s another half percentage point cut in 2027. So those are the two sides of the coin. On the one hand, to increase the minimum wage, to expand the protection of the worker. On the other hand, this measure should not come at the expense of healthy entrepreneurship. On the contrary, we should take actions to reduce wage costs[…] In these years, the non-salary cost has decreased by 5.5 units, we have had the creation of 500,000 new jobs” he said at another point.