Banking contract at a standstill. After the split between the unions and the Abi, the trade unions are moving towards a strike at the end of January but, at the same time, they are trying to carry on a "diplomatic" job to avert the most dramatic outcome represented by the cancellation of the contract starting from January 2015.
Yesterday the statements of the protagonists were based on the "wall against wall": on the one hand theAbi, the Italian banking association, which has defined the position of the unions as "anachronistic"; on the other, the trade unions which consider unacceptable the stakes placed by the credit association on the demands of the category.
Let's see the stakes and the points on which the rupture took place. There are three main chapters: salary adjustments, calculation of severance pay and seniority increases, issues that are intertwined with the unknown factor of second-level bargaining.
The Abi is pressing for a structural one reduction in labor costs. The top management of Palazzo Altieri have identified the cutting of labor costs as the key to solving the profitability problems present in an economic moment, such as the current one, characterized by low interest rates and the evolution of home banking which would lead to the reduction in the number of branches. For Abi il labor cost cutting it should materialize above all on some items.
To the unions' request for a 6,05% three-year increase, the ABI responded with a proposal to adjust the gross 1,85%. Secondly, the banking association would like to influence the basis for calculating the severance pay in such a way as to reduce the cost of future liquidations in the future. Finally there is the crux of seniority: for the Abi they should be blocked by entrusting their eventual recovery to company bargaining. A condition that the unions instead reject en bloc.
I banking unions, for their part, they are not willing to give in. In fact, they believe that in this way the new generations would be penalized too much, especially due to the lack of guarantees on a possible economic recovery during the second-level bargaining. The unions, on the other hand, would be willing to accept a stop to seniority increases, but only for three years.
The points related to inflation and seniority increases are therefore enough to understand the distance, at the moment, between the two parties and the reason for the break in negotiations. The future of this affair does not look rosy at all. There are practically two roads: either you try to mend the rift by 31 December by extending the contract again until spring or you move towards canceling the contract as early as January 2015.
