Workers at H&M in Spain have called off plans to strike next month after reaching an agreement for a pay rise.

Walkouts had already been staged across three days last week and earlier this week by around 4,000 staff. The CCOO and UGT unions had extended the protests to 1 July and 8 July over both pay and staff workloads.

The strikes however have now been called off, with the company announcing a truce in a statement: "Today, H&M and the social partners signed the final agreement that meets the identified needs of H&M Spain employees.”

The package of measures approved include details related to store sales incentives, minimum guaranteed value for responsibility functions, salary increase for sales advisors, increase of effective resources in stores and information rights.”

H&M’s initial proposal would have seen shop assistants paid an extra €1,000 over the next 14 months, but this final agreement now will give additional monthly bonuses linked to sales performance until 2025. H&M has also agreed to hire more workers across its Spanish business to reduce the workload of its staff across 91 stores – which represents 3.7 per cent of its global 106,000 stores.

The agreement is set to be signed in mid-July.

H&M staff made the decision to protest after months of failed wage negotiations, with workers claiming that the Swedish H&M paid less than its major competitors including local rival Zara. Strikers last week claimed that most staff at the company work part-time and earn less than €1,000 per month.

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