Agreement finally reached for savings banks

Download article in original language : ES0001272FES.DOC

In December 1999, after 23 months of bargaining, the trade unions and employers' associations in the Spanish savings banks sector signed a new "transitional" collective agreement. Seniority supplements and inflation-linked wage revision clauses have been maintained, as have most existing working hours arrangements.

The renewal of the national collective agreement for the savings banks sector had been under negotiation since January 1998. The talks proved particularly lengthy and difficult due to the irreconcilable demands of the employers and the trade unions regarding working time and pay, and the lack of a united position among the trade unions (ES9909253N). However, over the last three months of 1999 the differences between the majority trade unions in the sector (the CC.OO-affiliated COMFIA and the UGT-affiliated FeS) and between the unions and the Savings Banks' Association for Labour Relations (Asociación de Cajas de Ahorros para las Relaciones Laborales, ACARL) were narrowed. Compromise positions were found and the aspects on which there was most disagreement were left aside. This enabled a transitional agreement for 1998-2000 to be concluded on 20 December 1999 by ACARL, CC.OO, UGT and the Trade Union Confederation of Savings Banks (Confederación Sindical de Cajas, CSICA).

The content of the agreement

The issues covered by the agreement are as follows.

• Pay. Seniority supplements have been maintained. The purchasing power of workers has been guaranteed by means of an increase equal to that in the retail prices index (RPI) in pay and other elements of remuneration (such as subsistence and travel allowances). Wage revision clauses have been introduced for 1999 and 2000 in the event of differences between the RPI estimated by the government and the real RPI.

• Working hours. The same distribution of weekly working hours and the same hours of work have been maintained: 08.00 to 15.00 on Monday to Friday and 08.00 to 14.30 and then 16.30 to 20.00 on Thursdays from 1 October to 31 May; and from 08.00 to 15.00 on Monday to Friday from 1 June to 30 September. Three Thursday afternoons off during 2000 have been agreed.

• Recruitment and employment. It has been agreed to offer permanent contracts to 60% of the workers on temporary contracts (with 18 months' service) through the contract for the development of permanent employment (contrato para el fomento del empleo indefinido) subsidised contract scheme (ES9706211F). It has also been established that for future recruitment at least 80% of the contracts must be permanent. For new permanent contracts, there will be a probationary period of nine months.

• Training and development of qualifications. A joint commission will be set up to establish a standard career structure. The agreement also establishes adherence to the national agreement on continuing training (ES9907133F) and creates a sectoral training commission.

• Equal opportunities. The agreement declares that it supports the principle of equal opportunities and non-discrimination against workers on grounds of sex, ethnic group, age, marital status, nationality, social condition, language, religious or political ideas, union membership or disability.

Concessions

The employers wished to increase special opening hours arrangements to 10% of branches. They also wished to freeze seniority supplements and to eliminate them for newly recruited workers, and to omit wage revision to the real RPI in 2000. The fact that ACARL gave these demands up and agreed to reduce the number of working afternoons created internal divisions in the employers' association that had never before been so evident.

There were serious disagreements between the trade unions on working time. CC.OO was willing to accept an increase in the number of offices with working hours different from the established ones to 7% of branches if these working hours were specified in the national sectoral agreement (35 hours a week, from Monday to Friday, with a single timetable of 08.00 to 21.00 in two shifts: 08.00 to 15.00 and 14.00 to 21.00), and providing that this involved the net creation of employment on permanent contracts. CC.OO was thus in favour of regulating at national level something that was being negotiated or imposed company by company, avoiding the liberalisation of working hours for all the workers in the sector and establishing the exchange of external flexibility (temporary contracts) for internal flexibility (different working times). These proposals were laid down in a preliminary agreement that CC.OO signed with ACARL in June 1998, which was rejected by UGT (thus limiting its effectiveness) and finally by the employers' association, so it never came into effect. UGT was not willing to accept the introduction of extra afternoon working and demanded the 35-hour week through new reduced opening hours for all workers in the sector; ACARL never accepted these terms.

Commentary

The trade unions considered the seniority supplement and the maintenance of purchasing power as untouchable, given the high profits of the savings banks. Although this is one of the Spanish subsectors in which there is least temporary employment, the unions have also fought to reduce precariousness in savings banks, establishing a quota of conversion of temporary jobs into permanent jobs and a quota of new permanent jobs. Likewise, though it is one of the subsectors with the shortest working hours and with one of the best timetables (a continuous morning shift for most of the week), the number of working afternoons has been reduced.

Still, in relation to recruitment, more could have been expected of the agreement. Workers who provide their services through temporary work agencies – those with the least job stability – are excluded from the agreement's employment clauses. What is more, there is no commitment on: the use of temporary agency workers; subcontracting; cases in which a job can be covered with a temporary contract; or the maximum duration of these contracts. This is notable in an expanding sector such as that of savings banks, where it is difficult to find a different reason for using temporary contracts other than seeking to reduce labour costs and to ensure that a weak workforce would offer greater availability and adaptability to the demands of the management.

More was also to be expected on working hours. Spanish unions are especially concerned about the extension of working hours (ES9907141F) because it hinders job creation (this extra working time cannot be referred to as overtime in the savings banks, as overtime is not recognised as such, and is not paid in most cases), but in the agreement there is no mention of this. The trade unions have claimed that there is a staff shortage in the savings banks, but no commitment is made on net creation of employment. On the extension of working hours, the work of the new commission on forms of professional and economic promotion in the sector may make a contribution: according to various studies, working extra hours has become one of the ways in which workers show their commitment toward the company, and the introduction of objective criteria for career development may thus indirectly prevent the extension of working hours. The establishment of this commission is a step forward in a sector in which the workers' representatives have little say in determining the human resources policy, which is reserved for the management of each company.

Finally, the clause that refers generally to the fundamental right of non-discrimination is surprising. This clause has no real effect because it repeats the terms of the law that already guarantees this right. Copying the content of the laws is an increasingly characteristic of Spanish collective bargaining, which is attempting to extend the issues dealt with in agreements, but with no effect. (Clara Llorens Serrano, QUIT-UAB).