150,000 bank workers called to strike today

The unions representing workers in banks have called a two-hour strike this Monday for all 152,000 employees in the financial sector, as a pressure measure to request an improvement in salary conditions in the market for the collective agreement negotiations that are underway.

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The two-hour strike is called by the majority unions in the financial sector (FINE, UGT and CCOO) and will be held from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., effectively delaying the time of starting work in those two hours.

Specifically, the 80,000 employees covered by the Banking collective agreement, the 55,000 of the Savings and the 17,000 of the Credit Cooperative, are called to support this strike.

The unions are asking for salary increases “in line with the benefits of the sector and significant measures that improve an increasingly unsustainable work environment.” On March 22 there will be a 24-hour strike in the sector, coinciding with the shareholders meetings of CaixaBank and Banco Santander.

“We demand that the management leadership of a sector that has broken all its profit records, and that continues to increase its dividends and the salaries of its leadership, revert those benefits to those who make them possible: With fair salary increases, to regain power lost purchasing power, with measures that improve an unsustainable work environment, marked by commercial pressure, workloads and the impact on health, and with adequate staffing to be able to provide quality service to customers,” the three unions in a joint statement.

The unions are asking for salary improvements of between 17% and 23% for the entire four years that the collective agreements for Banking, Savings and Credit Cooperatives last. Although the employers’ proposals are far from these revaluations.

The latest offer from the AEB is a salary increase of 8% in four years, a figure similar to that offered by the Credit employers (Unacc and Asemecc), although in their case the increase would occur in three years. For its part, CECA decided to raise its salary increase proposal to 7.5% in its last meeting.

The next meetings between employers and unions will take place a few weeks before the strike scheduled for March 22. Specifically, worker representatives will hold their sixth day of negotiation with the AEB on February 29; its fourth day with Unacc and Asemecc on March 7; and the seventh with the CECA on March 12.

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