BCP/BPA deal suggests new tendency in banking bargaining

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After more than a year of negotiations, an agreement was reached in early 1998 between one of Portugal's largest banks, the BCP/BPA Group, and the Union of Banking Employees, which marks a major departure from traditional bargaining in this sector.

In the aftermath of a contentious process that took over a year, an agreement was reached in early 1998 between one of Portugal's largest banking groups - the Banco Comercial Português (BCP)/Banco Português do Atlântico (BPA) group - and one of the banking sector unions - the Union of Banking Employees (Sindicato dos Quadros Técnicos Bancários). The agreement marks a substantial departure from traditional collective bargaining in this sector.

The banking sector has maintained, from Portugal's pre-1974 corporatist period, a strong tradition of innovative collective bargaining, in the form of agreements that encompass nearly all the sector's employers and trade unions in a given geographical area. The only avenue of flexibility open to banks regarding the content of these agreements is to express reservations at the time of signing, and to be excluded from some portions of the settlement. This approach was used principally in the 1980s, after the April 1974 revolutionary period, when the banking sector was again opened to the private sector.

However, during the most recent revision of the multi-employer agreement for the banking sector, the BCP/BPA group denounced the agreement. The BCP/BPA maintained, on the basis of principle and some case law, that, since negotiations were stalled, the old agreement ceased to apply to it. The unions responded by claiming that, according to the letter of the law, the old agreement would remain in effect until such time as it was replaced by another. The conflict went to arbitration under the auspices of the Labour Administration. The BCP/BPA group ultimately finalised a collective agreement with the Union of Banking Employees under which the previous agreement will remain in effect, but with some important alterations. It also establishes some groundwork for the next revision. Although the clauses of this new company agreement do not differ radically from the established tradition in the sector, and despite the agreement having been finalised with a union that represents only a small proportion of banking employees, the deal has broken with the banking sector tradition of one collective agreement covering a single geographical area. In addition, it foreshadows significant change in the content of future agreements.

If this situation becomes a precedent, we may thus be witnessing the beginnings of significant change in an economic sector that is one of the country's most important and which has a major tradition of collective bargaining.