International Relations

UNI affiliates celebrating a win in Italy

A LONG NEGOTIATION WITH HUGE RISKS FOR BANKING WORKERS

During more than 18 months of negotiation for the renewal of the National Agreement for the Banking Sector, the ABI (the Italian Banking Association) emphasized the challenges being faced by the banking industry.  

The ABI requested to Unions the following:

- Recovery of the mere purchasing power of the salaries through inflation indexes

- Structural blocking of the severance pay and seniority increases;

- Reduction of the contract area and revision of the salary schemes with the clear intention to disrupt the Sector.

After two days of strikes declared within twelve months, involving each time 90% of workers, and a huge endorsement by national media, none of these requests were accepted, and the union managed to get a salary increase of 3,1% for the workers.

LOOKING TOWARDS THE FUTURE OF WORK

The new National Collective Agreement creates a “Bilateral Agency”  to manage future crisis, protect workers in case of new mergers between banks, and relocate dismissed workers from the sector.

The entry wage for young workers will be increased by 8%.

The workers already belonging to the Banking Sector will keep their original contract when moving from companies belonging to the same group.

Unions of course are aware about the development of future job market: a Commission between workers and ABI will be set up in next months to study and regulate the new working profiles that will emerge in the future.