Union Realignment in Banking & Insurance
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A new union federation for banking and insurance staff was set up in June 2005. It resulted from a merger between the previous CGT federation and the union created in late 2004 by former activists from the CFDT federation, and is affiliated to the General Confederation of Labour (CGT).
Activists in the CFDT-Banking Federation launched an appeal for union realignment on 20 October 2004. 'We’d been out of step with the confederation for a long time and pension reform, together with the reform of social insurance for the casually employed in the stage and screen sector led us into making up our minds to quit the CFDT', explains Bernard Dufil, the federation’s former general secretary. November 2004 saw the pre-concerted simultaneous resignation of all the federal secretaries in the CFDT-Banking federation. Later in the year, the former activists from CFDT-Banking set up the Bank Staff Union (Union des syndicats du personnel des banques, USPB).
This is the first time that activists switching from the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) to the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) has led to a new federation being set up. The CGT-affiliated National Federation of Financial Sector Staff (Fédération nationale des personnels des secteurs financiers, FNPSF) and the USPB decided to merge to create the CGT Federation of Bank and Insurance Staff Unions. The inaugural congress of this new federation was held from 31 May to 3 June 2005 at Cogolin (Var). The FNPSF voted itself out of existence (77% in favour) and 83% of those voting approved the rules and regulations of the new federation. Philippe Bourgallé, general secretary of the former CGT federation, will occupy the same post. Two-thirds of the posts in the union hierarchy will be held by people from the former CGT federation, with the remaining third for former CFDT members.
The CGT claims that nearly 1,000 CFDT-Banking members have now joined the new federation, with the CFDT putting the figure at only 536. The new federation emphasises how open it intends to be and is calling on non-union staff as well as activists and members from other organisations to join its ranks. Its ambition is to reach a membership of 15,000 within a year (it currently stands at 11,000) and to oust CFDT-Banking (18,000) from its position as the majority union in the sector. It will join the international professional federation UNI Finance, a member of Union Network International (UNI).
After the congress, the CGT general secretary, Bernard Thibault, hailed the birth of the new federation : 'It’s an important, an exceptional event, and it shows that French trade unionism is not penned into its permanent divisions, its disunity, but it’s possible to get together to work together.'
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