Bosses' Lobby Gets a New Boss Before Wage Talks Open

Luz Stella Murgas, newly elected head of the National Association of Business Owners of Colombia (ANDI), says the debate over the 2027 minimum wage "cannot be limited to giving a figure." Translation: she's not putting a number on the table yet, and the people who live on that number don't get to set it.

ANDI was founded in 1944. For the first time in 82 years, a woman runs it. Murgas is a lawyer from Universidad del Rosario and a tax law specialist. She spent eight years at Ecopetrol, held executive posts at the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH), and has led the Colombian Natural Gas Association (Naturgas) since 2021. Oil and gas executive, then gas lobbyist, now the face of the country's biggest employers' club. Her stated priorities: strengthening competitiveness, promoting investment, boosting formal employment, and consolidating dialogue between the public and private sectors.

What They're Calling "Prudence"

On Blu Radio, Murgas called for a "technical, prudent and responsible discussion." She backed the old formula of inflation plus productivity and said increases outside that range, as happened during the previous government, should end. "Colombia needs workers to have better incomes, and we also need to protect the source of employment," she said. She added that the discussion should follow DANE's criteria on the CPI and productivity indicators.

Notice who owns the phrase "source of employment." It's the boss. Wages become a favor the payroll-signers can withdraw if workers ask for too much.

She acknowledged that better incomes and competitiveness can compete with each other. "We all want better wages, but we also want greater competitiveness, and that must be part of the same solution," she said. She also tied the wage talks to the fiscal adjustment law. Asked for a figure, she declined: "It would be very irresponsible of me, because this also requires an agreement with other key actors."

What the Numbers Say

October's annual inflation hit 6.30%, up from 5.51% in the same month of 2025, a rise of 0.79 percentage points. The current basic salary is 1,750,905 pesos (US$529), not counting a transportation allowance of 249,095 pesos (US$75). Apply inflation plus roughly one point of productivity and the increase would top 7.3%. That's only a reference; no percentage has been agreed.

Run the arithmetic on what's actually being fought over. An 8% adjustment adds 140,072 pesos (US$42) to the basic income, bringing it to 1,890,977 pesos (US$571.4). At 9%, the gain is 157,581 pesos (US$47.6), reaching 1,908,486 pesos (US$576.6). That's the gap the bosses' association wants a "technical" debate about: a few dozen dollars a month for the people doing the work.

Who Sits at the Table

The committee's membership: the National Government, business associations and labor unions. Workers who aren't in a union have no seat of their own. The calendar is fixed. The wage and labor policy negotiation committee meets November 18, and the Ministry of Labor is considering bringing its installation forward. On November 30, DANE and the productivity subcommittee present the total productivity report. December 15 is the legal deadline for a negotiated deal. If the parties don't agree, extra sessions may follow in the second half of December, and the Government then has until December 30, 2026, to issue the decree setting the increase.

So the final word, if talks stall, belongs to the Government by decree. Murgas has said ANDI is still holding internal discussions and isn't ready to commit to a percentage. The employers get to deliberate in private first. Everyone else waits for November 18 to find out what's already been decided in the rooms they weren't invited to.