There is perhaps no adjective more abused today than "epochal". The often rhetorical and empty use that is made of it has largely weakened its charge of meaning. Yet the transformations initiated in the economy by the digital revolution, the irruption into our daily life and that of companies of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, marks a watershed between a "before" and an "after ”. It is along this thin line that we play, at least in large part, the negotiation for the renewal of the national banking contract in which the trade unions are involved.
In the last meeting with the ABI we decided to create a control room which, starting from the next appointment, on the agenda for July 30th, will have to define the guidelines for regulating digital innovation and its effects on work.
The fact that both parties, trade unions and Abi, agree on the fact that the matter should be regulated within the national contract is crucial. This for two reasons: in the first place, the principle is affirmed that the new professional profiles that are appearing in the limelight of the banking world cannot be defined at the level of the individual groups, thus stopping any deregulation ambitions; secondly, space is made for a participatory model anchored in the constitutional provisions of article 46, which "recognizes the right of workers to collaborate, in the ways and within the limits established by law, in the management of companies".
For the CISL, the latter is an issue of identity. It is no coincidence that participation is also the leitmotiv of Now Bank Manifesto, an articulated set of proposals for the reform of the banking system presented by First Cisl at the beginning of 2018.
However, participation, from our point of view, is not embodied in the simple right to be consulted, perhaps bestowed as a benevolent concession and for this very reason, if necessary, always circumventable or revocable. Instead, it means contributing to the adoption of decisions in the places appointed to take them. For this reason the control room we work with the Abi shouldn't be a simple forum for discussion: we are not interested in other think tanks, there are already too many. What we need is a real bilateral body, within which to define in agreement with the banks the methods of application of the new digital technologies, the impact they will have on the processes and their effects on workers.
To achieve this goal, however, there is a need for national bargaining and company bargaining to relate harmoniously and transparently. Agreements between the parties and union relations can in fact represent the most propitious ground for participation, even if we do not underestimate the importance that an extension of bank governance to workers and their representatives would have. We do not intend to limit ourselves to a single option: joining the boards of directors, for example, would be a sign of absolute novelty with respect to the corporate culture that has always distinguished the sector; but electing our representatives to the supervisory bodies, on the basis of the different governance models adopted by the banks, would have an equally significant impact.
It is always in this framework, among other things, that it must be read our proposal for Carige, which provides for the entry of workers into the capital of the Ligurian institute through the Foc, the Employment Fund set up in 2012. We are in fact convinced that the task of a truly "new" union, in the sense that Giulio gave to the term Pastore, let it not only be that – certainly very important – of negotiating working conditions for today, but of designing those of tomorrow.
°°°° The author of the article is the Secretary General of FIRST Cisl
