MADRID, 13 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -
CCOO has announced that it will demand a second phase of salary increases in the financial sector to offset the impact that inflation is having on the purchasing power of the workforce and after knowing the "record" benefits that the entities have obtained in 2022.
In the statement, it indicates that these demands will take place after the holding of union elections in banks and cooperatives and savings banks on February 15, and in Unicaja Banco and Ibercaja on February 23.
The union points out that the financial entities of the Ibex 35 closed 2022 with "record" results close to 21,000 million euros, close to 28% more than in 2021, considering all the geographies in which they are present. Banco Santander obtained a profit of 9,605 million euros, 18% more, while BBVA earned 6,420 million euros, representing an increase of 38%.
CaixaBank increased its profits by 29.7%, up to 3,145 million euros, while Unicaja obtained profits of 260 million euros, 88%. Banco Sabadell earned 859 million euros, 62% more, and Bankinter closed the year with 560 million euros in profits, 28% more.
In the case of considering only the business in Spain, the large banks obtained a record profit of 7,540 million euros, which represents an increase of 38.5% more.
"This spectacular improvement in the results of the large Spanish banks has been marked by two fundamental factors: the reduction in personnel costs and the rise in interest rates," explains the union. On the one hand, it points out that the restructuring processes carried out by the entities have led to an adjustment of nearly 5,000 jobs in 2022 and the closure of 1,300 branches, reducing operating costs and increasing gross margins.
In parallel, CCOO indicates that the rise in interest rates being carried out by the European Central Bank (ECB) to control inflation "propitiates" the increase in the financial margin by transferring the rise to interest on loans and by not being still remunerating deposits.
"Thanks to both processes -reduction of personnel expenses, rise in interest rates that are passed on to families and companies--, and in opposition to them, business income, dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executive leadership they shoot up," he says.
In this way, after the union elections, CCOO will demand a second phase of conversations in the observatories with the employers' associations of banks, savings and rural banks to address salary increases and interest rate limits on loans granted to staff.
It should be remembered that in recent months, the unions and the banking employers' associations AEB, CECA, Unacc and Asemec agreed to reopen the current agreements to apply salary increases of around 4% to offset the impact of high inflation on the workforce. In addition, the union organizations indicated that, once the inflation data for 2022 and the benefits of the sector were known, they would request new meetings to apply new wage increases.
On the other hand, the CCOO has demanded from the financial sector as a whole, and from the large Ibex 35 entities in particular, an "express commitment to what its social purpose should be", which is to "provide credit to the economy to families and companies, under reasonable conditions".
"In this sense, there is a need for measures promoted by the Executive to alleviate the effect that the rise in rates has on disposable income, that have a regulatory specification, that protect customers in terms of transparency and mobility between entities, that mitigate the escalation of prices derived from the increase in rates, which make the prices of credits more bearable", adds the union.
CCOO has demanded from the leadership of the financial sector an "express and committed involvement with these measures, in the triple labor, fiscal and business plane", also from the "obvious need to take care of the reputational cost and image of the sector".
