All union branches in the Bank of Italy on smart working

24 May 20213 years ago babelfish

Facts and trade union controversies in the Bank of Italy in view of the end of smart working. Here are the details

The unions of the Bank of Italy are not going to go back to the office without a real need. “A specter wanders around the Bank – wrote the union led by Maurizio Landini – is the specter of returning to the office at any cost, without any logic and without consulting the unions”. This is reported by “ Il Tempo ” which, in an article by Carlantonio Solimene, reports the background of a white-hot clash between unions and the Bank of Italy . At the end of the clash, the unions threatened to reveal internal " altars" to the organization. The issue is particularly thorny because, as the Roman daily directed by Franco Bechis writes, both Prime Minister Mario Draghi and Economy Minister Daniele Franco have been at the top of the Central Bank in the past.

The background

On 22 January the first negotiating meeting on the organization of work in the Bank of Italy took place between the employers and the trade unions CIDA, SIBC, CGIL, CISL, DASBI, FABI, UIL. On that occasion, the trade unions had made requests based on five principles:

equal dignity between services performed in person and performed remotely;
the voluntary nature of the employee in the use of “agile work”;
flexibility in application to the various structures and work activities;
the autonomy and responsibility of the worker;
the right to training.

At the base was the desire to continue on the path of agile work at least for those tasks that did not require a physical presence in the office.

The "crisis" of the meeting of 20 May

A virtual meeting was held on May 20 between the unions of the workers and the top management of the bank, on behalf of which the general secretary Alberto Martinelli participated . The question on the table is the management of smartworking in this new transition phase before a slow return to normality. The Bank of Italy's proposal is a model of access to smartworking not regulated by a single central system but managed in an autonomous and flexible manner by the managers of the various divisions. The trade unions, as reported by Il Tempo , have contested the excessive fragmentation of decisions which, in their opinion, would have left "every colleague at the mercy of the will of their bosses". The reaction of the unions, lashing out against Martiello for the cancellation of the team stands (an alternating management between working in the presence and smart working), would have led the representative of the Bank of Italy to disconnect the connection.

The reaction of the trade unions

The trade unions did not take the interruption of dialogue well. “ We rejected the proposals of the company delegation and above all we criticized the method of conducting the negotiation, which is in fact not open to a real confrontation with those who represent the majority of all our colleagues – they write on the SIBC website -. It is the third meeting in a row in which the same principles are exposed without a minimum signal of listening skills and, above all, without the slightest argument in support of the positions ". The matter is postponed to the next meeting. “Next week we will deliver to the top management of the Bank a detailed document that promptly explains the position of the Unions' Table on the rules to be written to achieve the much-desired new normal – the trade unionists write -. It is not a question of overturning the proposed model, but of bringing it back into a negotiation path rather than a mere and fideistic adherence to what has been repeatedly illustrated during three meetings ".

The fragile union unity

The first victim of this clash is trade union unity. Falbi, the trade union organization with a relative majority in the Bank of Italy, Consob, IVASS, compared trade union unity to the Costa Concordia disaster . “Everyone remembers the Costa Concordia miserably wrecked on a small rock in front of the island of Giglio; it was a modern, imposing boat that conveyed the impression of solidity and strength – write the trade unionists of Falbi -. Similarly, the trade union unit , made up of seven unions that later became six, which proposed itself, with a hint of prosopopoeia, as a sort of "great and invincible Armada", ran aground on the first rock it encountered ". The shy response of the SIBC did not please Falbi. “This is probably the lowest point in terms of credibility reached by the trade union movement in the Bank of Italy – they write again. And he warns that, in the event that a useful solution is not reached, he will not hesitate to "resort to the conflict which remains, in the event of lack of communication between the negotiating parties, the only initiative available to a trade union that intends to carry out with dignity the role he is called upon to play in defense of the interests and expectations of Colleagues and Colleagues ".

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tutte-le-sportellate-sindacali-in-banca-ditalia-sullo-smart-working/ on Mon, 24 May 2021 13:27:33 +0000.