Intesa Sanpaolo, all the turmoil in Ubi Banca
What happens in Ubi with the integration into Intesa Sanpaolo. The article by Emanuela Rossi
The merger between Intesa Sanpaolo and Ubi Banca continues 14 months after the launch of the Ca 'de Sass takeover bid and 9 months after the closing of the Offer, which later became a purchase and exchange offer. However, according to the reports of the unions, the transition seems to be proceeding not without jolts, especially for the approximately 15 thousand former Ubi employees and, cascading, for the customers.
THE COMPLAINT OF FIRST CISL
On 20 April there was a meeting between the First Cisl delegation and the Intesa Sanpaolo company representatives to sign the application agreement for the 2020 Corporate Award of the former Ubi Banca group and for other communications including the upcoming start of the trade union procedure relating to the decision to transfer the typical business branches of the banking sector from IW Bank to Fideuram ISPB and Intesa Sanpaolo with the simultaneous transformation of IW Bank into SIM.
The First CISL delegates highlighted how – nine days after the start of the integration – "the situation that is experienced in the commercial network is heavy and devastating" especially for the former Ubi but also for the colleagues of Ca 'de Sass. "Currently – reads a note – chaos reigns in the branches of the new ISP Group, we are experiencing tense and surreal situations".
The service model, new for the former Ubi, as well as "a precarious knowledge of ISP Information Systems" are under accusation. “The calming signals that we want to give to public opinion, to the commercial network, and above all to customers, do not correspond to reality” highlights the organization that notices a difference between the territories. And again: "Very little, if not absent, training of former Ubi colleagues" even that remotely, "the number of assistants foreseen too small compared to the needs", "budgets overturned on the former Ubi branches just three days after starting the system commercial". The union delegates also highlight the problems encountered with customers, for example for the new collection of the documentation of the delegates on the account relationships transferred or for the application procedures.
"Today we are facing one of the most important operations of recent times, together with the simultaneous closure of over 400 branches, and it is important that it ends well" underlined the First Cisl delegates to whom the company delegation replied, first of all asking for " separate what can be technical evaluations from those that are emotional ". "The training that was made available to all colleagues was complete and all-encompassing – they said – and tutoring has not disappeared but has gone from a face-to-face mode to a remote mode" while as regards the problems with the coaches , who may "not have a thorough knowledge of everything", you can contact the Help-Desk structure. In short, the company reiterated point by point (workstations, facilitated conditions, rules on the institutions of the 2nd level contract, access regulations, transfer requests, home-banking platform) noting that "the use of technology and remote operations, including training, is not a corporate choice but a need determined by the various DPCMs that have followed one another to date, obviously related to the current pandemic phase, and by the sector protocols, which the Intesa Sanpaolo group intends to respect ".
THE POLITICAL LINES OF FABI
Two days later the Fabi coordination secretariat of Intesa Sanpaolo met for a video conference, in the presence of the general secretary, Lando Maria Sileoni, and the assistant general secretary, Giuliano De Filippis. After having expressed their appreciation for the agreement of 14 April, the coordination secretaries spoke about the criticalities that the employees of the group and workers of the group are experiencing. Starting from this, they listed a series of policies to be proposed to the top of the group such as "working immediately for the true integration of people" and making "a real change of pace on the corporate climate". It is also necessary to “strengthen trade union action on the territory by denouncing all undue commercial pressures that are inconsistent with ethical principles” and move on to better training – sometimes “totally inadequate and insufficient – on the organizational model and on IT issues.
Fabi also points the finger at "the shortage of staff denounced for some time by the union that asked for new and young employment in the branch network" and asks to "restore union meetings with new hires" and to "verify the necessary territorial distribution of the new assumptions ”without forgetting the attention to the new organizational method of the bank, with the reduction of workstations, the verification of spaces both on the network and in governance given the legislation linked to the risks of the pandemic and the defense of the right to disconnect.
Meanwhile, the trade policy commission is already taking office "to address the problems reported by the territories and soon reach a 'real' agreement on trade policies, which sanctions and corrects incorrect behavior to bring back a more relaxed climate on the territories and between the workers of the group ".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tutti-i-subbugli-in-ubi/ on Sun, 02 May 2021 13:33:39 +0000.