The key aspect of the "dynamic wages" proposed by the Government in the labor reform

The government recently promoted a reform of the approach to collective bargaining under the name "dynamic wages." This proposal seeks to place productivity and the specific situation of each company or sector at the center of salary discussions, with the goal of ensuring that increases are no longer automatic and depend on specific results and conditions.

The Secretary of Labor, Employment, and Social Security of the Nation, Julio Cordero , provided details on this shift in labor relations during the IDEA Colloquium held in Mar del Plata.

One of the pillars of the proposal is the decoupling of salary adjustments from the pace of inflation. Rather than replicating price fluctuations, the concept of dynamic wages aims to base revisions on verifiable parameters such as productivity, turnover, or available margins.

According to the official explanation, the goal is for wages to increase when the company's actual payment capacity actually increases , and for these adjustments to be defined more precisely in each specific negotiation.

The government sees the model as a tool that more accurately reflects the disparate conditions that exist under a single agreement, such as the reality of large firms versus SMEs, or regions with different cost structures.

The second fundamental pillar is the decentralization of negotiations . Currently, most collective bargaining agreements are closed at the sectoral level, with activity-specific agreements heavily influenced by the industry. The official initiative proposes that the general rule be closer negotiation with the company.

At this point, the most profound conceptual change occurs: the collective bargaining agreement would cease to operate as a minimum threshold (from which categories and additional benefits are increased) and would become a ceiling or limit that governs the general framework.

Under this new general framework, each production unit could internally agree on its salary conditions based on its performance, always within the range established by the reference agreement. The function of the agreements, therefore, would continue to exist, but would be to provide guidance and regulation, rather than setting a rigid threshold.

The new framework also proposes limiting the validity of economic guidelines. Instead of lengthy agreements with predefined update clauses, the model calls for the parties to review the terms more frequently, based on how activity evolves.

The proposal has raised concerns among unions and labor market analysts, who warn of two possible effects. There is concern about whether replacing floors with roofs could lead to a loss of protections for those with the lowest wages or those farthest from the busiest centers.

Furthermore, there is also concern that decentralization could widen the wage dispersion between regions and branches , increasing the gap between highly dynamic sectors and those that are more backward.

In both cases, the central question is how revenue protection will be maintained in contexts of business weakness or falling demand.