LThe 2023-2024 season of the F League of Women’s Football won’t start this weekend as planned after the social bank for the negotiation of the Collective Agreement has decided this Thursday that the strike announced last week must be maintained for the first two days before what consider the economic proposal “unacceptable” by the employers, who proposed at the last meeting of 20,000 euros of minimum wage.
“The member unions of the social bank of negotiation for modify and improve the Collective Agreement for First Division soccer players (FUTPRO, AFE, Futbolistas ON, CCOO and UGT) have decided, after the meetings held at the headquarters of the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service (SIMA Foundation) this week, that it is necessary to maintain the strike during the first two days of the regular league”, they stated in a joint statement sent by AFE.
The five unions consider “The final economic proposal of League F is unacceptable”Therefore, all of them continue to maintain “a firm proposal regarding the minimum salary that must be applied” so that Spanish soccer players “have salaries that match their talent.” “We are surprised and saddened by the position of the employers during the negotiations, which at all times has been of firm immobility in the face of the proposal made by the unions,” they added.
The social bank insisted that “since 2022” they have presented figures for the minimum wage “completely affordable given the economic dimension of the F League”, of which it recalls that tIt has as “insured income” 42 million euros in commercial assets, 35 million for television rights and 22.5 million through the contribution of the Government.
The five unions pointed out that in search of unblocking the situation, they proposed at the meeting on Wednesday “reach a one-year salary agreement to call off the strike and continue negotiating the collective agreement”but that the employers, “after two days of mediation, have remained practically immovable proposing a salary of 20,000 euros for this season, with the promise of revising the minimum wage again if this campaign generated more than 8 million euros of profit in commercial assets, in which case, it would only go up to 23,000”.
“The unions believe that any point agreed in a collective agreement should not be subject to the commercial achievements of a company because the rights of a worker are not a commercial asset,” they replied.
However, “given the immobility of the employers and in order to be able to reach a common point that benefits football activity”, they tried, “in the last effort”, to lower their proposal for this season.to “23,000 euros, giving up the retroactivity of the 2022-2023 season, with the possibility of reaching 25,000 if this campaign exceeds 8 million benefits”.
“But the F League has refused to accept something higher than 20,000 euros, thus making negotiation impossible,” he settled, stressing that the current minimum wage since 2019 is 16,000 euros, “an amount to which only applying the rise in the CPI would amount to 18,554”.
Only the issue of minimum wage has been discussed
The social bank pointed out that in these meetings with the F League this week “exclusively the minimum salary of the players has been discussed” and that “no other point of the Collective Agreement has been negotiated, something that was agreed in the meetings that took place they had in May” because they considered that, “given the stagnation in recent months on this issue,” it was “primarilyl reach an agreement on this part before further negotiating the other benefits“.
“After holding an assembly with the F League players yesterday, Wednesday, they consider the employer’s proposal unacceptable and are saddened that they have to maintain a strike even having lowered the initial proposal to 23,000 euros per year, which would imply, let’s not forget, charging less than the main referees“, lamented from the unions.
They underline that “it is a key moment to defend the labor rights” of Spanish soccer players and to “have the commitment that the institutions that make up the women’s soccer industry are committed to their development and the well-being of the protagonists.” “The unions that are members of the social bank hope that this position maintained by the employers can change and that a proposal can be made at the level of the soccer players that we have playing in our country,” they concluded.
In this way, the F League 23-24 will not start this Friday as planned with the duel between Sevilla and UDG Tenerife since the strike begins at 00:00 on September 8 and will continue until 24:00 on Sunday 10. Subsequently, if there is still no agreement, it will be held from 00:00 on Friday the 15th to 24:00 on Sunday the 17th.