"This Congress will help us at Fabi to form a team, but in the meantime I'm sending a clear message to the bankers: if they show themselves irresponsible, we will create problems for companies". With these harsh words Lando Maria Sileoni, general secretary of the Autonomous Italian Banking Federation, opens the 124th National Council of the main union organization of bank workers, held from Monday 3 December to Wednesday 5 December in Milan, at the Crowne Plaza hotel in San Donato Milanese. Two thousand trade union leaders, and guests such as Antonio Tajani, Antonio Patuelli, Giuseppe Guzzetti are expected in the three days of discussion, which also coincides with the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of Fabi.
Sileoni will speak on the closing day but in the meantime he anticipated some topics in the interview with MF: "The banks and bankers have received public aid, but the same as other categories: the sector must also be defended from lies", said the general secretary in view of the battle for the renewal of the bankers' employment contract, which expires in the next few weeks. “That there is too much aid for us is fake news. For example, for 17 years the banks have been financing Naspi and the old unemployment benefit with strokes of 200 million". In the crosshairs there is also the attitude of some bank top management, who according to Sileoni “have a soft relationship with the union in their companies, then when they meet in Rome in the ABI bodies they assume a fundamentalist and intransigent position. Different souls coexist within Abi: there are also the hawks, and they are always the same, they are the ones who raise their voices at each contract renewal".
“At the first irresponsible attitude they will force us to create problems in their companies”, insists Sileoni, who explains that Fabi “is ready for anything on the hypothesis of a mobilization in the event of no agreement on the renewal, which expires in December. But I must also say that Antonio Patuelli was the best president in the history of ABI, for a number of reasons including social sensitivity, having made ABI independent of politics and bureaucracy, having guaranteed stability to the sector. He also fought with intelligent proposals in Brussels ”. But now, there is an agreement to be reached. An agreement that affects almost 300 workers, to which must be added the 37 employees of the CCBs.
