2024-01-09 12:48:06
Tomorrow, employers and unions will resume the negotiation of the banking agreement for the next three years (2024-2026) and they will do so in a climate of confrontation, with the positions very far apart and with the threat of a strike on the table. The three main organizations of the sector, CC OO, UGT and FINE – which negotiate jointly – have threatened with an “escalation of mobilizations” if there is no “clear” progress in the negotiation of the new collective agreements for banking, savings and credit cooperatives, without even ruling out resorting to specific strikes during the first quarter. They denounce that since the negotiation tables for these agreements were established at the end of 2023, the employers “have not made the slightest progress on basic and urgent issues, such as salary and loan ceilings, in addition to improving the work environment. “Time is running out.”
The banking associations AEB, CECA, Unacc and Asemecc believe that their demands are “too high” for the current situation and for the short and medium term perspectives, which is why they have asked for “moderation” so as not to jeopardize the future of the sector. and the entities themselves. The banking associations point out that their offer of between 5% and 7% spread over three years is a “reasonable” offer and they consider the exit figure proposed by the unions of a minimum of 17% and a maximum of 23% to be “disproportionate.” %.
The union entities justify their request in a context of historical benefits of the financial sector, and warn that at stake is “labor peace in a sector whose workforce can no longer wait. If the financial sector employers do not understand that they must return their templates in the form of a social dividend a part of what they contribute to the profits, we will launch “an escalation of actions this quarter.” And their first step will be actions in the next general meetings of the entities. “They cannot continue to be stuck in approaches of minimums,” they criticize.
The fourth negotiation meeting for the banking agreement with AEB is scheduled to be held tomorrow, and on Thursday it will be with CECA, representative of the former savings banks. In the case of credit cooperatives, whose negotiations began in mid-December, and not in November, the second meeting will be held next Monday, January 15.
In the first meetings, the employers rejected the unions’ salary demands, as well as including in the agreement the limitation to 1% of the interest that applies to loans granted to workers, including mortgages, since they understand that this cap ” “It must be negotiated within each entity, not in collective agreements.” At least, they do agree that measures should be approved to improve the work environment.
In this rarefied context of very distant and opposing positions, the 142,000 workers in the sector – 83,000 in banking and some 59,000 in the old savings banks – are kept in suspense by negotiations that are presumed to be long in the face of the common position of the unions, which warn that “If the employers do not understand that they must return to their staff, in the form of a social dividend, part of what they contribute to the profits that they are going to project at the shareholder meetings that will be held at the end of March, we will launch an escalation of actions during this quarter, with the dates of said meetings marked in red”.
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