Finance sector federation assesses employment relations in new journal
Published: 9 May 2010
The Portuguese Finance Sector Federation (Federação do Sector Financeiro, FEBASE), affiliated to the General Workers’ Union (União Geral de Trabalhadores, UGT [1]), was formally constituted in December 2007. It comprises the main trade unions of banking and insurance, which represent the great majority of employees in both subsectors of the financial intermediation sector (*PT0711039I* [2]). In 2010, FEBASE is performing a more central role in the financial intermediation sector because it has the mandate to conduct collective bargaining [3] in the banking (*PT1003059I* [4]) and insurance (*PT1003039I* [5]) subsectors.[1] http://www.ugt.pt/[2] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/new-finance-sector-union-federation-formed[3] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/collective-bargaining[4] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/industrial-relations-working-conditions/employer-and-union-in-banking-differ-on-amount-of-pay-increase[5] www.eurofound.europa.eu/ef/observatories/eurwork/articles/industrial-relations/unions-slam-employer-proposal-to-freeze-wages-in-insurance
In February 2010, the Finance Sector Federation (FEBASE) published the first issue of the journal ‘Revista FEBASE’. This is an important step for trade unions in financial intermediation. FEBASE was constituted in December 2007 and comprises the main trade unions of banking and insurance, which represent the great majority of employees in both subsectors. The first issue of the new journal provides a comprehensive assessment of employment relations in the sector.
Better coordination of finance sector trade unions
The Portuguese Finance Sector Federation (Federação do Sector Financeiro, FEBASE), affiliated to the General Workers’ Union (União Geral de Trabalhadores, UGT), was formally constituted in December 2007. It comprises the main trade unions of banking and insurance, which represent the great majority of employees in both subsectors of the financial intermediation sector (PT0711039I). In 2010, FEBASE is performing a more central role in the financial intermediation sector because it has the mandate to conduct collective bargaining in the banking (PT1003059I) and insurance (PT1003039I) subsectors.
On 16 March 2010, FEBASE published the first issue of the journal Revista FEBASE (in Portuguese, 1.1Mb PDF). With a circulation of 78,500 copies, the journal is an important step in increasing the visibility and strength of FEBASE and the coordination of trade unions in the financial intermediation sector. The journal’s first publication provides a comprehensive summary of employment relations in banking and insurance companies.
The editorial, signed by the Director of the journal and President of the Banking Trade Union of the South and Islands (Sindicato dos Bancários do Sul e Ilhas, SBSI), Delmiro Carreira, emphasises that it is vital to have a unifying voice capturing the positions of trade unions within FEBASE in order to consolidate the synergy among organisations representing the vast majority of workers in a developing sector. Employees in banks sell insurance products, and workers in the insurance subsector are orienting their customers towards the banks with which their company is associated. Their employers are generally the same, and their problems as wage earners are similar in the insurance and banking subsectors. However, in Portugal, employees of banking and insurance companies belong to distinct trade unions – that is, insurance trade unions and banking trade unions – which is an almost unique situation in Europe.
Therefore, the creation of FEBASE was the answer to this problem. It was launched by SBSI, the Banking Trade Union of the Centre (Sindicato dos Bancários do Centro, SBC), the Banking Trade Union of the North (Sindicato dos Bancários do Norte, SBN), the Trade Union of Insurance Workers (Sindicato dos Trabalhadores da Actividade Seguradora, STAS) and the Insurance Trade Union of Portugal (Sindicato dos Profissionais de Seguros de Portugal, SISEP). The journal Revista FEBASE provides a link between all of the members of those trade unions. The first issue features, among other relevant news, a dossier on the financial intermediation sector, written by Inês Neto.
High job security
In particular, the dossier provides information on employment relations in both the insurance and banking subsectors. Nearly 70,000 people are employed in Portugal’s financial intermediation sector, mostly in administrative occupations. According to the latest data available from 2008, the banking subsector represents 83% of the workforce in financial intermediation (see table).
| Banking | % | Insurance | % | Banking + insurance | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total employees (domestic) | 57,330 | 100 | 11,475 | 100 | 68,805 | |
| Occupations/functions | Supervisory | 14,268 | 24.9 | 2,876 | 25.1 | 17,144 |
| Specific professions | 20,579 | 35.9 | 3,504 | 30.5 | 24,083 | |
| Administrative | 21,625 | 37.7 | 4,634 | 40.4 | 26,259 | |
| Auxiliary | 858 | 1.5 | 461 | 4 | 1,319 | |
| Gender | Men | 31,314 | 54.6 | 6,054 | 52.8 | 37,368 |
| Women | 26,016 | 45.4 | 5,421 | 47.2 | 31,437 | |
| Age | Up to 44 years | 40,048 | 69.9 | 7,292 | 63.5 | 47,340 |
| Older than 44 years | 17,282 | 30.1 | 4,183 | 36.5 | 21,465 | |
| Seniority | Up to 15 years | 34,604 | 60.4 | 5,155 | 44.9 | 39,759 |
| More than 15 years | 22,726 | 39.6 | 6,320 | 55.1 | 29,046 | |
| Type of contract | Permanent | 52,624 | 91.8 | 10,636 | 92.7 | 63,260 |
| Short-term | 4,706 | 8.2 | 839 | 7.3 | 5,545 | |
Source: Revista FEBASE; data from the Portuguese Association of Banks (Associação Portuguesa de Bancos, APB) and from the Insurance Institute of Portugal (ISP)
Although men are in the majority in either subsector and as a whole, the gender parity is closer in insurance than in banking. In terms of age distribution, employees under the age of 45 years are predominant in both subsectors. In both fields of activity, more than 90% of the workforce have permanent employment contracts. Therefore, job security in the financial intermediation sector contrasts sharply with the trends observed in other economic sectors of increasingly precarious jobs, mainly through the use of short-term employment contracts. Moreover, part-time jobs are rare in both subsectors.
The journal highlights that employees in the financial intermediation sector in the first decade of the 21st century are younger, that women’s participation is higher, and that seniority and careers are increasingly short compared with the situation that traditionally pertained in the sector.
High labour productivity
The dossier also highlights the results of recent studies on labour productivity in both subsectors, emphasising that labour productivity in banking and insurance is high in Portugal. In fact, it assesses the sector’s productivity even above the European Union average and above the eurozone average. This conclusion is confirmed in various studies that have examined the two separate subsectors of banking and insurance.
Banking
Research on the banking subsector, coordinated by Carlos Pereira da Silva from the School of Economics and Management (Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, ISEG), covers the years 2000–2004. It assesses productivity in the banking industry through various measures and reaches the same conclusion in relation to productivity in this sector in Portugal: it is high and shows a constant increase. The study compared the productivity of the Portuguese banking subsector with that of Spain and France, concluding that labour productivity in Portuguese banking is higher than in French and Spanish banking. The reasons for this finding are related to the large reduction in the number of workers and in labour costs. The added value of banking has been increasing, as well as the profits distributed to shareholders.
Insurance
In relation to labour productivity in the insurance industry, the Revista FEBASE dossier highlights the data provided by the Insurance Institute of Portugal (Instituto de Seguros de Portugal, ISP) in its Report 2007, which takes into consideration a collection of statistical information for the period 1999–2007. As in the banking subsector, the conclusion is that there was sharp productivity growth during that period. The average productivity per employee increased by 160.4% between 1999 and 2007.
Commentary
According to the dossier’s author, Ms Neto, the financial intermediation sector in Portugal is technologically advanced and enjoys a high degree of labour productivity. It was accustomed to delivering excellent quarterly profits to its shareholders. Therefore, even in times of economic turbulence, when the sector was at the epicentre of the financial crisis, the sector in Portugal only slowed down a pace.
Maria da Paz Campos Lima, Dinâmia
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2010), Finance sector federation assesses employment relations in new journal, article.
