The Interprofessional Minimum Wage (SMI) has been proposed to increase by 4% in 2018, which now stands at 706 euros. In other words, EUR 28 more! Thousands of workers from the Spanish state, including those from Hego Euskal Herria, will have to “live” with these 736 euros. Pensions, for the fourth consecutive year, will be increased by 0.25%, so millions of pensioners will receive between two and three euros more per month. And as the general election comes, the pp government has announced “significant increases for 2019 and 2020.”

That's what's there. Those who govern and those who are behind the government (banks, big multinationals, IBEX companies…) accumulate millionaire wages and profits, and they unashamedly accept those miserable excuses for raising salaries and pensions to others. And that is because there are trade unions that sell themselves and are very grateful for the subsidies they receive from the government. CCOO and UGT are negotiating with the employers and the government of Spain and they say they are going to ask for the SMI to rise to 886 euros, as if it were a lot! And if the government maintains its proposal, then what?

Both the members of the Spanish Government and the employers, banks, multinationals and big companies, as well as the liberated trade unions, should spend a year – yes, just a year – with this miserable salary, with an SMI that will not exceed EUR 736. Capitalism has a free path and neither the political left nor the unions do anything to deal with it. It's paced with the system, and that's how it goes.