Bank contracts, Orcel: there is no debate about the increase but about how to get there

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“We will follow the path we have taken to the end.” The CEO of UniCredit, Andrea Orcel, also enters the debate on the renewal of the national collective agreement of ABI banks, who recalled at the twenty-second congress of the Fabi: «We are still in the Casl and those negotiations are managed there. That would not be correct. We will go our own way to the end.” As a bank, says Orcel, we have specific characteristics: «We hire while others don’t hire. We don’t close doors and others close them. We do training and we have decided to do 360° training on our people. Remuneration is important and is based on meritocracy. Since 2021 we have demonstrated that we are the bank in Italy that pays the best, that has increased productivity bonuses and bonuses more than all the others. We have invested more than 100 million euros to compensate for the increase in the high prices on the lower ranges of our colleagues».

On the opening on the increase of 435 euros per month, at the precise request of the general secretary of the Fabi, Orcel says that it is at the Casl di Abi that one must ask. In general, however, «there is no difference of opinion on the people of the bank. They must be recognized for what they do and be compensated fairly. On the principle and on the substance there is no debate, on how to get there yes», says Orcel.

Pending the conclusion of the bank meetings which will have to give the green light to the platform for the renewal of the national collective labor agreement, some positions on the employers’ front are already beginning to emerge which represent real starting points for the negotiations which could start already in the first half of July, as emerged at the Fabi congress.

The clearest one was certainly expressed by Carlo Messina, the CEO of the largest bank in the country, Intesa Sanpaolo, who made a clear opening on the request for a monthly economic increase of 435 euros, defining it as an acceptable increase.

If the president of ABI, Antonio Patuelli, preferred not to express himself before the workers’ meetings, the number one of the trade union and labor affairs committee, Ilaria Dalla Riva, underlined that “the Messina CEO speaks for his company” and that as president of the Casl his role “is different and will have to lead to a synthesis between banks that are all different from each other”. Certainly for the unions, starting with the Fabi, led by Lando Maria Sileoni, the opening of the CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo is a “starting point” and Abi must “acknowledge that Intesa has made this opening, even if it has left you displaced . And we have to start from there.”