Santo Domingo. - The Labor minister Max Puig’s mediation failed today in the management-labor wage increase standoff, as both sectors blame each other for changing their initial proposals.

The unions varied their demand and now ask from 12 to 22 percent for scales ranging from the minimum to RD$27,000, whereas employers also changed their offer from 12 to 15 percent, but only for the minimum wage.

At the end of the session when both groups met separately with Puig, the official expressed his concern for the failure to reach an agreement and scheduled a new meeting for next week Thursday, vowing that if a solution isn’t found, “we will look for one.”

He said while he agrees with also increasing the higher-than-minimum salaries, he reiterated that the Wage Committee doesn’t have faculty to discuss a higher scale than the minimum.

Big business

At noon management representative Marisol Vicens left Puig’s office reiterating that there’s no agreement, placing the blame on the unions.

Vicens, president of the Dominican business group Copardom, said her sector varied the proposed increase from 12 to 15 percent, but only for the minimum wage. “The employer sector is frustrated because according to what the Labor Minister had announced we had come to reach an agreement today.”