The Government wants the income pact to limit benefits and dividends of companies

The Government anticipated this week its intention to use the “great profits” of the electricity companies to alleviate the effects of the current inflationary crisis. It won’t stop there though his eagerness to meddle in the income statements corporate. Quite the contrary, the Executive wants to use the income agreement, which is still negotiating with the social agents, to limit the benefits and therefore the distribution of dividends of all the companies that adhere to that future agreement. | Editorial: An attack on free enterprise.

Specifically, it is sought that the firms voluntarily offer a counterpart to the moderation of salary increases that will be included in the pact. The Executive wants companies make a commitment that goes beyond containing the repercussions of inflation on its prices, while narrowing its margins. Moncloa hopes that this policy translates into concrete figures, capable of reflecting slower growth in profits and lower shareholder returns.

The initiative is promoted by the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, they assure in circles close to the Executive. For their part, business sources reveal to the Economist which has already been proposed to employers. It’s more, It was also discussed at the last meeting of the EU finance ministers (the Ecofin) where it was exposed by the first vice president, Nadia Calviño, who “does not oppose” this action, according to those same sources, although from the department that Calviño directs, they deny that conversations of this nature took place in that European forum.

From a strictly legal point of view, the limitation of profits and dividends to which the Government aspires is viable, to the extent that it does not imply an imposition but it would be presented as a “recommendation” to companies. Now, that does not mean that it is an easily avoided commitment on their part, as a very similar and recent situation shows, which occurred during the Great Confinement.

It was in May 2020, when the Government, under cover of the Covid-19 crisis, openly sought to influence the remuneration policy for its employees. company shareholders. In that case, it was also a recommendation to limit this type of disbursement, but deviating from it had consequences for the firms.

Specifically, the restriction of their access to exemptions in payments to Social Security for Ertes due to force majeure was foreseen. They also got up barriers when it comes to ICO endorsements to obtain funding.

The approach of these conditions caused important tensions in the meeting of the CEOE Executive Committee, to the extent that various sectoral organizations there represented considered it a blatant attack on free enterprise.

Now a similar situation can arise with regard to the new income agreement. The currency of exchange in this case they would no longer be the Ertes-Covid nor the ICO lines, but the Executive could exert some pressure through access to future aid to mitigate the rise in energy prices or subsidies from the central Administration.

Therefore, tensions in the employers’ association similar to those that occurred in 2020 are foreseeable, especially considering the erratic evolution showing payment dividends in recent years. From its maximum of almost 43,500 million accumulated in 2014 by the Spanish listed companies, its current level, typical of the 2021 financial year, amounts to only 20,474 million.

Yolanda Díaz advocates suspending updates according to the rental CPI

The Government, however, hopes to convince businessmen to add to the income agreement equalizing it, in terms of scope and importance, with the historic Pacts of La Moncloa of October 1977. Employers’ organizations and unions participated in them, together with the political parties of the time, at a time of even more extreme inflation than the current one, given that the general rate of IPC came to exceed 40%.

This large consensus made it possible to promote far-reaching reforms both in the sphere of the workers themselves and in that which concerns the company (reform of collective bargaining, changes in Social Security, new regulations on the publication of business information…) and also included an income agreement in the broadest sense.

In fact, the purpose of emulating the already famous Moncloa Agreements may lead to the next income agreement going beyond wages and benefits businesses and even covers rentals. To the point that the vice president Yolanda Díaz advocates suspending the updates according to the IPC of the leases.