Contents

Foreword

Sofia,  2ⁿᵈ  - 3ʳᵈ  April 2019

The framework of our seminar in Sofia

This EU Project in its route and goals

Two goals of the project to be attained with the support of our external expert prof. Filip Dorssemont

Belgrade, 19ᵗʰ - 20th -21ˢᵗ June 2019

FIRST PLENARY WORKSHOP Belgrade, 19-20-21 June 2019

Again on the fitness check

Goal VI of this Project

Rome 13ᵗʰ -14ᵗʰ -15ᵗʰ  November 2019

Goal V of this Project

State of play and follow-up Rome, 13-14-15.11.2019

INTRODUCTORY REPORT - Rome, 13th November 2019

13 proposals for the revision of the  Directives to improve employee involvement

Questions for the round table of friday

MEP Brando Benifei about Dorssemont’s 13 points

Rome, 7ᵗʰ - 8ᵗʰ October 2020

Our proposal for a revision of the EWC Directive

Overview of developments within the EWCs and within the Intesa Sanpaolo Group

The experiences of two workers representative of industry 4.0 change and of their direct trade union representatives

The stories we heard on 7 October 2020 and the analysis of the questionnaires filled out by a sample of workers of the 4.0 segment

Our dialogue with management representatives

Future prospects and credits

Rome, 24 - 25 - 26 February 2021

Introduction

AGOSTINO MEGALE • Introductory Report at the Final Conference  24ᵗʰ February 2021

On 24 February

The experiences of EWCs and transnational groups through the three questions which I asked them:

Second Session • 25.02.2021

Given the stand-by situation in terms of the EWC to be set up, we want to stress this crucial political issue through the contribution by Elena Cherubini

The Final Round Table: the speed of change and the european directives on employee involvement

Foreword

A European Project that's gone beyond any expectation, a real sharing of ideas and proposals:

this is the best and most concise conclusion I find for this Project and that our website engineer chose to define it.

Indeed we were aware, my team and I, of the technical and juridical complexity of the whole matter: analysing the change in working conditions, the change in the finance business, in the way the financial products are on sale, the change in the composition of a workforce as years go by, older employees retire or pre-retire happy to do it, while much younger and much more motivated women and men enter this industry.

At the same time we have believed in the Fitness Check of the EU Directives for the Employee Involvement and have decided to try and give our contribution to this Fitness Check, proud of a European legislation made to manage rights in a changing economy and society, a European legislation needing this check to keep up with such an impressive speed of this change.

Together with us, many colleagues, comrades and friends, elected by trade-unions and employees to manage their EWC and/or their national union, have believed in the opportunity and value of this Project, but with us we have also had (and will have, I am sure) some outstanding employers' associations top responsible persons, who share the goal of industrial relations well working in this continuous change as well as a up-to-date EU legislation.

The key word of this project has been "change". This word often causes fear.

We have wanted to turn such a fear into a more positive attitude able to see the change as an opportunity, as a perspective to have a future and as a challenge not to be avoided but to be taken to grow up.

Managing fear to keep it under control requires a willingness supported by awareness and knowledge to be provided by vocational training for employees of course but also fort their actual or potential trade-union reps who need to learn how to organise employees 4.0 by meeting their demands. Managing change requires tools to be used by competent trade unions reps and these tools have to be up-to-date with the speed of change: they are collective bargaining tools, information/ consultation tools whose sources are more and more the EU Directives for the Employee Involvement.

As well as trade-union approach, the concerned Directives need to be up-to-date.

Our little contribution in this respect may get stronger as long as we are able to involve our social partners in our goals and share with them all possible ideas and initiatives, being aware of the diversity of our respective role but bearing in mind the added value of an effective cooperation. Our voice has nevertheless to be spread and supported in the EU institutions through a link with MEPs whom we are in tune with and whom we can coordinate our action with. So these have been the concepts behind our goals that this action has in the end attained.

We are confident in such a follow-up of this Project, having clearly agreed with our social partners that we will be able to share the work and the effort to put this agenda forward.

Mario Ongaro

Project Manager

Sofia,  2ⁿᵈ  - 3ʳᵈ  April 2019

The framework of our seminar in Sofia

We had meant this meeting not just as a mere kick-off one, but also as a Seminar to start going in-depth a number of pillars of the Project, according to a pattern that we would reiterate in all the other 4 collective events, even if of course by tailoring thee Seminar approach according to the route of the Project.

We had 16 participants including the Head of Uni Finance, Angelo Di Cristo and our external Expert, as well as 8 reps from the transnational groups and the Fisac staff for the Project

Our participants caught that meaning of ours very well and delivered presentations and contributions all aimed to provide us with the necessary information and knowledge about the transnational group and the concerned EWC that they represented.

Therefore we got presentations on Santander, Crédit Agricole, Unicredit Group, contributions on Bnp Paribas, Intesa SanPaolo, Soc.Générale, KBC.

The same participants had in the meantime filled in the questionnaire that our Research Institute had sent out to frame the 4.0 employees and their attitudes. The concerned report was delivered alongside the report of the Project Manager and the one of the Research Inst. President, covering all aspects introducing the Project and setting the Project in the economic, political and social scenarios.

In the framework of such a dense and committing Seminar the lesson by Prof. Filip Dorssemont about the EU Directive for the Employee Involvement was the perfect training element and conclusion of those 3 half days in Sofia.

Setting this First Meeting in Sofia was a concrete sign of our deep and now really historical relationship that we as Fisac Cgil have been building over the last 2 decades with the finance unions of the whole region OF Central/eastern Europe from Poland to Turkey. The same spirit is behind our choice to set the First Plenary Seminar in Belgrade.

This Seminar was prepared by a first questionnaire, addressed to the 8 transnational groups reps who were part of the Steering Group of the Project alongside with the Fisac staff. That "overall picture" was mainly focussed on the workforce 4.0 side and the main outcomes of this first survey were:

Employees (and in particular the 4.0 ones) are keen on flexibility, they think that salary increase has to be a result of productivity increase, the feeling of belonging to a company is not vanishing through smart working. So we got very challenging answers for the union movement, as long as we were immediately put through a specific section of the workforce, the section we were mostly interested in investigating, and we were discovering their positive attitudes towards the change, moreover a kind of attitudes that somehow were contradicting the defensive policy that unions had so far considered appropriate in order to protect these employees and their rights/ guarantees. Said that, these outcomes were strongly tempered by other outcomes which showed not only by a demand of training not only by these 4.0 employees whose demand of training was poorly met by their employer so that they were not enough enabled to perform their job with the skill required to perform it, but also a demand of training concerning the section of workforce made of "obsolete" employees whose jobs were either menaced or already cancelled as an organizational effect of digitalization, and whose perspective to be relocated and redeployed is mainly depending by a well centered and effective re-training plan.

The debate about the above outcomes of this first survey has in particular stressed the problematic issue of trade-union recruitment of young employees (who largely correspond with the 4.0 employees): the relationship with them has to be build up patiently by being next to them and getting their trust. The young employees' issue is already emerging in terms of how to renew unions: more turnover? ok, but the point is also how to organise young employees 4.0, those highly skilled ones and highly motivated to work, those 4.0 ones who are very used to flexibility and self management of their working time in order to attain their productivity goals, I mean the things that have then been confirmed by the surveys made between October 2020 and February 2021 by Valentini the sociologist.

But again, it's so difficult to organise people working somewhere else and isolated! Unions need more resources and a specific training to cope with such a context.

This EU Project in its route and goals

The Project, with its inevitably long and complex title, was elaborated and presented last May by Mario Ongaro, Director of the European Section of ISRF LAB, the Research and Training Institute of Fisac-Cgil, and former Coordinator of the International Department. Our proposal was accepted by the DG Employment of the European Commission, which awarded us the funds necessary for its implementation.

This Project will take place over 2 years – until the end of 2020 – and it will require a lot of work and human resources on the part of Fisac-Cgil and ISRF LAB. Therefore, it has been necessary to integrate the Steering Committee (existing in every European Project) with a working group formed by Agostino Megale, President of ISRF LAB, Giuliano Calcagni, Secretary-General of Fisac-Cgil, and Mario Ongaro, Project Director. The basic political objective of the Project is to start a process aimed at introducing new procedures for the involvement and participation of employees in the changes brought about by industry 4.0. This will be done through a fitness check, requested by the European Commission, of the actual implementation of the Directives adopted in the last 4 decades to promote employee involvement.

The long title perfectly summarizes the topics covered by the Project. It also implicitly states its goals, as is required by the calls for proposals in which national trade unions, European federations of trade unions, as well as national and European employers’ associations take part. These Projects must be aimed at analyzing issues and at indicating goals. In our case, we intend to work for 2 years with the trade union representatives of 7 large banking groups and 1 insurance group, all of which have a transnational, global dimension, with offices in all of the European Union and branches scattered in all continents.

For trade unions, a clearly fundamental element is the overall number of employees: considering all the workers of the 8 groups around the world, the total amounts to almost 1 million (despite the reduction due to restructuring processes and to the transfers of undertakings which have taken place in the last 10 years).

The groups involved in the Project are: Intesa SanPaolo and Unicredit group for Italy, Crédit Agricole, Bnp Paribas, Société Générale and Groupama for France, Santander for Spain, and K.B.C. for Belgium.

All of these groups have had a European Works Council (EWC) for years, except for Intesa SanPaolo, where procedures for the setting up of a EWC have already been launched. The EWC is the body established under EU Directive 2009/38 in which workers’ representatives from all over Europe (including the 28 current EU Member States and Candidate Countries) meet top management representatives from the group’s parent company to be informed and consulted on all the topics which have a significant impact on employees and which play a significant role for their working conditions and future prospects.

The EWC does not engage in collective bargaining, which remains the exclusive prerogative of union representatives who have industrial relations with local management and/or national employers’ associations in the various countries. However, if all of their rights are fully implemented, EWCs can provide important social dialogue tools that can have an impact on the strategic transnational decisions of parent companies.

As pointed out by Agostino Megale (now President of ISRF LAB and former Secretary-General of Fisac from 2010 to 2018) in his introductory remarks at the Sofia meeting, EWCs should not radically change their role as information and consultation bodies, but rather strengthen, update and fully implement it. In our opinion, in order to do so they must experiment innovative practices, capable of keeping up with the speed of change and to integrate the traditional information and consultation procedure with the anticipation of change. The latter can be achieved by building together with transnational groups what we may call a social plan on digitized work. Its elaboration should entail the involvement of workers and their representatives to discuss redeployment, retraining and training opportunities. In short, it should give a concrete application of the principle of employee involvement established by the Directives, whose fitness check was required by the European Commission and to which we want to contribute.

Agostino underlined that EWCs are the only example in the world of a workers’ representation body in transnational groups. In our sector, we know that we have to deal with American banking giants which, after the crisis, are now back to double-digit profits, and with Chinese State giants which operate all over the world for the construction of new infrastructures.

In this competitive framework, the European banking system will be forced to proceed to further business combinations and mergers. However, this process must be guided and supported by public authorities, in order to protect workers, clients and the European economy as a whole.

A stronger social dialogue, which can keep up with the times and anticipate change, thus becomes an indispensable tool.

It is with social dialogue in mind that I considered the participation of the European Banking Federation as essential. The Federation represents private and commercial banks (i.e. the vast majority of credit institutions) in the EU and, together with its President, we will discuss possible proposals on joint objectives.

First, as trade union representatives, we will discuss between ourselves on which topics and goals we can work with the European Banking Federation. Then, we will involve not only the Federation, but also some representatives of the top management of these large groups. In an unprecedented approach for this kind of European Projects, we will exchange views, ideas and possible joint proposals with employers’ representatives and we are determined to make the most of the opportunity.

Changes in work organization in the 4.0 finance industry clearly have a direct impact on workers and it is up to union officers to speak on their behalf.

This is the essential reason why we decided to involve in all Project stages the union representatives in transnational groups and in their EWCs. We certainly did not exclude national trade unions (we will have 14 of them from 13 different countries), but we are aware that company-level union representatives are in the front line in addressing change. Those of them who also chair EWCs (or are involved in industrial relations with the parent company) can get first-hand access to information on change and future prospects in good time, so they can help trade unions to react quickly and appropriately. The response will certainly also involve national unions, but it should always start from the input of company-level union representations and EWCs.

The speed of change is the challenge we have to tackle

1. and it is what strongly characterizes the 4.0 era in our sector:

1. speed of change in work organization,

1. and in the workplace(s) which companies create for their employees;

1. speed of change in the nature of the employment relationship: from typical employees to parasubordinate workers (i.e. formally self-employed but dependent on a single employer for their income);

1. speed of change in working hours, in two directions. On the one hand, working hours are more flexibly distributed across the day, the week, or the year. This has led to an extension in the time period between the beginning and the end of work, so much so that Italian trade unions have claimed the workers’ right to disconnect from the tools (phone, email, etc.) which employers can use to contact them;

1. on the other hand, flexibility is combined with a sort of self-management of working hours which is functional to the achievement of production and sales targets.

These are challenges that we must necessarily address. Otherwise – as pointed out by Agostino – we will lose our representativeness and ability to negotiate change. Furthermore, we need to promote a productive and professional synergy in banks between older generations and digital natives.

This is a challenge emerging from the new composition of bank workforce following the changes of the 4.0 era.

On the one hand, industry 4.0 change in banks

is causing major employment issues in the entire traditional segment of the production cycle. Most standard jobs with none to little added value have been outsourced or completely automated. However, some still exist, as is the case in traditional branches and in the back office of Central Departments. These segments of the production cycle employ relatively old workers, who can hardly be redeployed to tasks with a higher added value. As trade unions, I think we can only negotiate a number of guarantees that can protect the income and the pensions of these older workers. This has been the case, for instance, in Italy in recent decades.

On the other hand, industry 4.0 change in banks

leads to the emergence of a new workforce, or to the renewal of part of the existing workforce. Through smart working, digitization, teleworking, new jobs which combine the characteristics of employees with time management schemes and tasks more typical of self-employment, this new workforce is necessarily more flexible when it comes to working hours and place of work. However, the added value of this new workforce is based on specialist professional skills, which can open up important opportunities of career advancement and pay rise.

The role of trade unions at a national level and, even more so, at a company level is to represent both types of workers: the traditional workforce and the “smart” one of industry 4.0. In other words, trade unions must protect the former from the repercussions of marginalization and expulsion from the production cycle. At the same time, they must meet the needs and expectations of the new workforce. If trade unions fail to do so, this new workforce would only have management (up to the top levels) as its only interlocutor.

This brings us back to the involvement of the European Banking Federation (EBF), represented by Jens Thau, President of the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the EBF. We need to involve the EBF if we want trade unions to be able to talk to the new workforce segment in banks. Not only it is our duty to represent these new workers, but we also have to learn how to represent them, as some EWC Presidents told us in Sofia. Part of the problem is indeed the training of trade unionists, who must acquire new skills and tools in order to be on the same wavelength as younger workers. The horizons of the latter are no longer (or no longer exclusively) made of a monthly fixed salary for fixed working hours and standardized, predictable work. The new generation of workers now has variable goals, variable working hours, relative autonomy and self-management opportunities, very good relational skills and the willingness to address complex and ambitious tasks.

First, we must complete our analysis of change processes, in such a way to be well-prepared for an open, in-depth discussion with the European Banking Federation, but also with some representatives of top management of the groups represented in the Project (i.e. with those who represent central management for the EWCs involved in our Project).

In this key stage of the Project, we will ask UNI Finance to collaborate with our Steering Committee. In particular, UNI Finance will be asked to play its typical political role in our dialogue with the social partners of the finance industry, similarly to what it does in Banking Social Dialogue. To this purpose, we will work together with Angelo Di Cristo to be adequately prepared and to agree on the approach which UNI Finance should adopt. In doing so, we will take into account that – as suggested by Agostino – one of the goals of our interaction with the social partners is the elaboration of a Social Plan on employee involvement.

In my capacity as the Project Director, I would now like to underline one last aspect. The legal pillar of our Project is the analysis of the existing connections between changes in work organization in the 4.0 finance industry and the European Directives on employee involvement.

Our argument is that the full implementation of workers’ rights under these Directives – in EWC Agreements, in company-level and in national collective bargaining – is a powerful and essential tool to allow us to tackle the challenge of change and to address it jointly with management. It is certainly not the only tool, but a powerful and mandatory one.

This topic was addressed in the lecture by Professor Filip Dorssemont, with whom we are going to closely collaborate until the Belgrade Plenary and afterwards.

We already had a very fruitful collaboration with Filip Dorssemont (Professor of European Labour Law at the Catholic University of Louvain) in our latest Project. During this Project, his documentation will be promptly published on the website of Fisac.

In Sofia, Nicola Cicala, Director of ISRF LAB, presented the results of the survey carried out among all the union representatives taking part in the Project. The objective of the survey was to give a preliminary overview of the current situation, prospects and union stances in EWCs on industry 4.0 change. The survey results basically confirmed our initial perceptions and analysis. Together with Nicola’s report, they will soon be published on our website.

1. The following speakers, representing their respective EWCs and transnational groups, were:

1. Bnp-Paribas - Silvia Romano (EWC Deputy Secretary)

1. Société Générale – Cristian Mocanu (EWC Secretary)

1. Crédit Agricole - Dominique Mendes (member of the EWC Select Committee)

1. K.B.C. - Guido Van Den Eeckhoudt (EWC President)

1. Unicredit group – Francesco Colasuonno (EWC President)

1. Santander - Noemi Trabado Gago (EWC member)

1. Intesa SanPaolo – Elena Cherubini (member of the Secretariat of the Central Coordination Unit)

In their speeches, they explained the peculiarities and common aspects of change and of the policies they adopted to handle it. The following exchange with us (the Project coordinators) and with Professor Dorssemont ranged from the involvement of young workers to the related renewal of union officers, from the adequacy/inadequacy of existing EWC Agreements to the illustration of company-level agreements, like the one of Intesa SanPaolo about the so-called “hybrid” forms of employment (which combine the characteristics of employees with others more typical of self-employment).

The contents of these speeches will also be made available on the website of Fisac-Cgil. The same will be done for the conclusions by Claudio Cornelli, National Secretary of Fisac-Cgil (also in charge of International Affairs), who spoke on behalf of the Secretary-General Giuliano Calcagni (legal representative of the Project), and for the speech by Angelo Di Cristo, Head of UNI Global Finance. The latter has been collaborating extensively with the Steering Committee of our European Project since the first meeting in Sofia. In addition to the trade union representatives of the 8 transnational groups mentioned above, the Project involves the staff of Fisac-Cgil and of ISRF LAB, namely Agostino Megale, Mario Ongaro, Nicola Cicala, as well as Francesca Carnoso, Legal Expert of Fisac-Cgil, Cristiano Hoffmann, Organizational Director of Fisac-Cgil, and Rita Diotallevi, Head of Administration at Fisac-Cgil. This staff is well-prepared to perform all the obligations under the contract signed with the European Commission.

Two goals of the project to be attained with the support of our external expert prof. Filip Dorssemont

Goal II. Analyze the tools that relevant EU Directives provide to manage

4.0 processes and their effects on employees in finance industry and check the level of awareness and effective use of such tools within the participating EWCs.

Goal III. Check the level of effective implementation and compliance of such Directives in the various national contexts concerned by the transnational groups represented in the Project, in order to check the effectiveness of the LINK between the transnational and national levels as per article 12 of 2009/38 ("Fitness Check").

Please find hereunder some examples of how we met the goal II. and III. above mentioned here:

A RELEVANT TOOL is to be found IN THE SUBSIDIARY REQUIREMENTS OF 2009/38 DIRECTIVE TO MANAGE 4.0 PROCESSES, so that any EWC

Agreement should explicitily include it:

ART. 1 a)

The information and consultation of the European Works Council shall relate in particular to the situation and probable trend of employment, investments, and substantial changes concerning organisation, introduction of new working methods or production processes, transfers of production, mergers,cut-backs or closures of undertakings, establishments or important parts thereof, and collective redundancies.

This is literally the most precise tool we have got in the 2009/38 to manage

4.0 changes in terms of information and consultation. We can find similar tools in the other Directives for the Employee Involvement (such as the 2002/14, the 98/59, the 2001/86), but this one is crucial of course for the EWCs.

Before getting to this very point, we were able to meet the above mentioned goals II. and III. with the decisive support of our external expert Prof. Dorssemont training and lessons.

Please find a number of relevant results in this respect hereunder.

They are here resumed in a number of sentences showing the core of the analysis we have made, after collecting the participants feedback about their level of awareness and effective use of the tools provided for by the concerned EU Directives:

#Employee involvement fundamentally means up to what extent the employees' reps are able, or are enabled to influence the decision making process.#Employee involvement means that the opportunity to influence a decision has to be guaranteed by informing and consulting before taking the final decision.

#The right to be informed and consulted should turn into an obligation for the employer to inform and consult in case of restructuring process.

#The right to information and consultation is strictly connected to the right to be represented and to be an employee representative. This is not necessarily guaranteed everywhere in Europe. We have found relevant differences, depending on the actual unions' strength in the various EU countries and on the national legislation about unions rights.

#Consultation and negotiation are well distinct, but both need the information to be given in a timely manner, or "in a good time" just to use the precise wording of the concerned Directives: the point is that this timely manner is not clearly defined in any Directive. On top of that the 2002 14 finalises the consultation to reaching an agreement.

#Art 27 Nice Chart does not say what the object of the consultation should be. Therefore when national laws do not provide for a clear right to be consulted about specific issues, the art.27 does not have any direct effect.

#Transnationality is another important weak point that should be defined in order to avoid that the Management turns transnational issues into national issues (when they are not as a matter of fact), in order to prevent its concerned EWC from being informed and consulted about them.

#Confidentiality should be restricted to third parties, can't prevent from informing in a timely manner and to report back to the employees whom the individual EWC member represent in his/her own country

#Subsidiarity, subsidiary requirements: what can be done at a lower level, should be done at a lower level and what can be agreed between social partners should be agreed at their own level, without prescriptive rules. This is the win-win principle of the EWC and of its Directive i.e. to be a procedure to be put in practice through a free negotiation between the social partners.

Indeed only when such negotiation proves not to get to any agreement the Subsidiary Requirements should apply.

Belgrade, 19ᵗʰ - 20th -21ˢᵗ June 2019

FIRST PLENARY WORKSHOP Belgrade, 19-20-21 June 2019

The first of the three plenary meetings planned in the framework of the European Project took place in Belgrade from the afternoon of 19 June to the morning of 21 June. It was a very intense meeting, both for the complexity and in-depth discussion of topics and for the active participation of speakers and attendees during the four half-day sessions.

In this report we will do our best to summarize this extraordinarily intense exchange. Of course, it will not be possible to report all of its contents in detail. At the end of the Project, we will draw up a comprehensive report, which will be based on the systematic collection of the ideas and proposals submitted during the 5 collective events (3 Plenaries + 2 meetings of the Steering Committee) and in preparation for them.

First of all, it is important to mention the attendees who took the time to come to Belgrade, worked hard for 3 days and contributed to the success of the first Plenary:

representatives of the national trade unions of the financial sector from 6 of the so-called “new EU Member States” (Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Malta) and from 2 EU Candidate Countries (Serbia and Albania)

1. representatives of the national trade unions of France, Spain and Belgium: these are the countries where the parent companies of 6 of the 8 transnational groups involved in the Project are based (the 2 remaining groups – Unicredit and Intesa SanPaolo – are based in Italy)

1. EWC representatives of the 7 transnational groups in which workers are represented in EWCs (Unicredit, Santander, Groupama, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, Bnp-Paribas, KBC)

1. trade union representatives involved in collective bargaining within the Intesa SanPaolo group. This group has yet to set up a EWC, but the procedure to create one has just been launched

1. Fisac-Cgil staff in charge of the management and implementation of the Project, together with the National Secretary for International Policies. (Agostino Megale, President of ISRF LAB and former Secretary-General of Fisac, was not able to attend the meeting because of post-operative convalescence. I collected some of the observations he would have made and I included them in my introductory remarks)

1. the Head of UNI Finance and the Policy Officer of UNI Europa Finance

1. the Secretaries-General of Fisac-Cgil in Milan and in Tuscany, who have specific experience in the fields of Finance 4.0 and changes in work organization

1. the academic expert who is supporting us in the analysis of Directives on employee involvement and their actual implementation in the transnational groups involved in the Project.

These 8 categories of participants will also be involved in the following 2 Plenaries, which will take place next November and in June 2020. During these upcoming meetings, we will also involve another 2 categories which we consider essential for the purposes of our Project:

1. employers’ representatives from the European Federation of the banking sector and from some – if not all – of the 8 transnational groups

1. a representation of MEPs to discuss with them proposals for the revision of some of the EU Directives on employee involvement

We have been in touch with both of these categories for some time. In particular, in Belgrade we received a message from the European Banking Federation, whose representative could not attend our meeting.

But let us go back for a moment to the location where we organized this Plenary, i.e. Belgrade, and let us focus on the countries of this European region which take part in this Project:

Belgrade is the capital of the most important Candidate Country destined to join the EU (Turkey is obviously larger and more significant from all points of view, but it is clearly destined to remain a Candidate Country for a longer period of time).

Slobodan Mihajlovic, Secretary of SFOS, the Serbian union of finance industry workers affiliated with UNI, made an explicit reference to the past and to the berated Socialist regimes. Slobodan reminded us that Yugoslavia distinguished itself from other Socialist regimes for the self-management of factories – and of production facilities of goods and services in general – by workers. I would like to reflect upon Slobodan’s notable remarks. He expressed his bitterness about the dismemberment and destruction of Yugoslavia (which was – in his own words – “brutally killed”) and about the advent of a liberalist capitalism that has been far less radiant than what propaganda publicized in the past decades.

One may certainly disagree – even strongly – with this uncommon approach. Yet, Slobodan should be given credit for lifting the dusty veil of hypocrisy from the social and political evolution of Candidate Countries and of the so-called “new” EU Member States (most of which joined the EU 15 years ago, some 12 years ago and the latest – Croatia – in 2013). There, the trade union movement has had to tackle very difficult organizational, cultural and political challenges. Still today, it is faced with obstacles and refusals to recognize the role of trade unions in collective bargaining. The most common aspect in these countries is indeed the lack of national, industry-wide collective bargaining. Yet, this kind of negotiations did exist in some of these countries until some years ago and Romania is about to implement it. A notable exception is Malta, the smallest of the “new” Member States. However, it is also geographically distant from the other 7 countries that take part in this Project and its political history is much closer to the one of Western Europe.

There are two important reasons why this Project has decided to highlight the role of trade unions in the countries of this geographical area:

1. first, the production cycle of the European financial system – and, more specifically, of the 8 groups involved in the Project – relies on extensive and well-rooted branches in all of these countries, whose main strength from a corporate point of view is the combination of low labour costs, flexibility and productivity;

1. the second reason – partly intertwined with the first one – is the political need for our trade unions to include in a European Project on changing work within the 4.0 finance industry representatives of countries where industrial relations are very different. Indeed, the trade unions of parent companies and EWCs are faced with the key challenge of reducing – if not closing – the gap between Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe in terms of union rights, workers’ rights, collective bargaining and related legislation within the same transnational group (these geographical definitions may sound obsolete, but they are clearer than the terms “new EU Member States” and Candidate Countries).

In my introduction, also in the light of the exchange of views I had had with Agostino, I presented our Project in the new framework that emerged after the European elections of 26 May. Populist and sovereigntist parties did not win, but the European left lost ground and had mixed results across the continent (collapse of the SPD, victory of Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist party in Spain, victory of the Danish left, which combined welfare state policies with a strong attention to security issues and the control of migratory flows). The European Parliament now has a potentially wide and complex – if not unstable – majority. Trade unions must now be able to find political common ground and to adapt their organization to focus specifically on the impact of technological innovation and the changing work environment. All this in an international scenario in which US policies on customs duties and Chinese reactions relegate Europe to a passive role in the middle, with lower growth rates.

In the EU, Italy’s growth is more and more sluggish. Despite narrowly avoiding an excessive debt procedure, the policies of the current government have led to worsening inequalities and to Italy having a more marginal role in the EU’s strategic decisions.

In Italy, the finance industry is going through a period of uncertainty, which is linked to the change in the ECB presidency and the ongoing discussion on the banking union, the revision of bail-in rules and the effects of bank resolution measures.

In this framework, our Project is aimed at making a realistic analysis of the impact of digital innovation on employment and at elaborating proposals to maximize the effectiveness of European legislation on employee involvement. We intend to pursue the latter without changing the mission of EWCs as information and consultation bodies into negotiating bodies. However, we would like to introduce some instruments that could help EWCs to govern change (and not so much to anticipate it, considering that we are already experiencing change).

In this regard, it is important to underline 3 fundamental elements of this Project:

1. speed of change in the 4.0 era in the finance industry, i.e. speed of change in work organization and in the workplace(s) which companies create for their employees;

2. speed of change in the nature of the employment relationship: from typical employees to parasubordinate workers (i.e. formally self-employed but dependent on a single employer for their income);

3. speed of change in working hours, in two directions. On the one hand, working hours are more flexibly distributed across the day, the week, or the year. This has led to an extension in the time period between the beginning and the end of work, so much so that Italian trade unions have claimed the workers’ right to disconnect from the tools (phone, email, etc.) which employers can use to contact them.

On the other hand, flexibility is combined with a sort of self-management of working hours which is functional to the achievement of production and sales targets.

However, in my opinion there is an underlying trend to the speed of change, which is pushed by the digitization of the production process of banking and financial services.

To understand this trend, it is helpful to make reference to the old and bearded Karl Marx, who – in this respect and in many others – proves to be more modern than many presumed modern economists and sociologists.

I am thinking about the rapidity of rotation of working capital, i.e. the money out of which banks must be able to make a profit as quickly as possible. At the same time, they also need to dispose of growing shares of fixed capital, fixed assets like facilities, buildings, obsolescent machinery, offices and branches. These fixed assets have an impact on what Marx called the organic composition of capital and they lead to the tendency of the rate of profit (in this case for the bank) to fall.

After all, what is the open, smart branch about? What is the process of divestment and sale of huge real estate assets about? It is just about banks getting rid of costly fixed assets for years, albeit with mixed results.

And, after all, what is digitization about? It is about the possibility of offering banking services with the least possible amount of fixed assets, using working capital and making it rotate more and more quickly.

This whirlwind and radical reorganization of the production cycle in banks is pushed by the need to radically change what Marx called the organic composition of capital and to increase the rate of profit in two ways:

1. first, the aforementioned drastic reduction in fixed capital, together with the exponential growth of the rapidity of rotation of working capital;

1. second, the strong increase in work productivity through quality improvement and the readiness of workers to accept different working hours, schedules and targets. This acceptance is then rewarded through increased independence, less hierarchy, more opportunities of professional growth and pay rises.

In this framework, trade unions have taken an approach which Nicola Cicala, Director of ISRF LAB, defined as “constructive”. He identified this approach as the evolution of the approaches which prevailed in the past decade, which were based on the acquisition and defence of workers’ rights.

This constructive approach was further analyzed by Roberto Errico, from ISRF LAB. According to him, the strategy of the European banking system in the past decade (in terms of employment, number of branches, number of companies, etc.) can be summarized with the phrase “Less for More”. While there are cuts in fixed and variable costs at all levels, as well as cuts in interest rates, the formidable push of technological innovation is determining such an increase in work productivity that it even compensates for falling interest rates and helps banks to make profits. However, there is also the looming power and size of Big Tech (Facebook, Amazon, Apple Card and others), which offers financial services that are in direct competition with banks.

The Belgrade Plenary focused on the connection between the analysis of material processes carried out by IRFS LAB (in collaboration with the national trade unions, the trade unions represented in Intesa SanPaolo, and the Fisac sections of Milan and Tuscany) and what we called the legal pillar of the Project. By that, we mean the “fitness check” on the implementation and effectiveness of European Directives on employee involvement, on which we will continue to focus also after the Belgrade meeting for several months. In particular, we want to assess the past and current results of European Directives in terms of employee involvement through EWC Agreements and European Social Dialogue.

Filip Dorssemont, Professor of European Labour Law at the Catholic University of Louvain, presented his analysis of EWC Agreements in the light of relevant European Directives. Later, there was an intense exchange of views with EWC delegates, who replied to Professor Dorssemont’s observations and explained the various contexts in which EWC Agreements are implemented.

Professor Dorssemont also gave us a very useful suggestion, i.e. to check if the existing EWC Agreements in our 7 groups contain an explicit reference to the subsidiary requirements of Directive 2009/38. More specifically, the Directive establishes that the information and consultation of the European Works Council shall relate in particular to the substantial changes concerning organisation, introduction of new working methods or production processes. This wording cannot be disputed and it would allow EWC representatives to demand information and consultation on everything that is related to changes in work organization.

A fundamental observation for the purposes of our Project concerned the meaning of the expression Fitness Check for the European Commission. From our point of view, assessing the implementation of the Directives on employee involvement should logically lead to re-writing them or to adopting better implementation measures, if we conclude that they are not effective. However, Professor Dorssemont warned us that, from the point of view of the European Commission, the rules which would turn out to be ineffective should not be re-written nor accompanied by alternative implementation measures, but – with a typically deregulatory approach – they should simply be abolished.

This radical criticism further encourages us to continue with our collective analysis and to deepen it with the EWC representatives involved in the Project.

Angelo Di Cristo (Head of UNI Finance, but also past President of the EWC of Unicredit) gave a very useful reply to Filip Dorssemont’s presentation, which he essentially organized in 3 points:

1. the first one concerned the role of TUAs (Trade Union Alliances), the transnational alliances which UNI Europa and UNI Finance in particular have been building for some years “around” existing EWCs or in the groups where it is necessary to encourage their creation (such as in the case of Intesa SanPaolo). Without going back to previous discussions on the role of TUAs which took place in other meetings and in past Projects, Angelo pointed out that TUAs can effectively support the action of EWCs by strengthening their role and dynamism. This is quite the opposite of those who feared an improper interference and overlapping with the prerogatives assigned to EWCs by the Directive;

1. the second point made by Angelo highlighted the extraordinary potential and opportunities which EWCs and the trade unions of transnational groups are offered by this European Project led by Fisac-Cgil. Indeed, the Project gives us the opportunity for an exchange of experiences of different trade unions, companies, information and consultation procedures and to learn from each other about possible solutions to common problems and challenges. These are opportunities which these representative bodies do not normally have during their activities, given that they necessarily have to focus on their internal problems and dynamics. Instead, the managers of different companies and groups have more of these opportunities and they exploit them to exchange information;

1. the third point was about the need for constant and persistent monitoring to assess the actual implementation of Agreements and Joint Declarations. In this respect, Angelo mentioned the possibility of considering a collaboration between EWCs and TUAs with regard to Transnational Company Agreements. We are going to get back to this point in view of the next Plenary, which is scheduled for 13-14-15 November in Rome.

We intend to achieve, together with UNI Finance, the central objective of the first Plenary, i.e. the elaboration of some proposals (not guidelines, which are typically the prerogative of management) for the stipulation of TCAs. These agreements can be an important evolution for the protection of the rights of workers of transnational groups, who have to deal with the challenges of change in the 4.0 era. In this area there are no guidelines nor specific proposals like the ones which we intend to draw up through this Project. Rather than our right, it is our duty to do so, at least to demonstrate that we can make an effective use of the financial resources which the DG Employment allocated to our Project.

Another very interesting presentation on the Fitness Check was the one by Susana Aranda Vasquez from the trade union Servicios/CcOo in the Santander group. She talked about the acquisition of Banco Popular by Banco Santander back in 2017, an example of best practice also for the effective implementation of Directive 2001/23 on transnational mergers and acquisitions. The group was indeed able to minimize job cuts and to preserve workers’ rights, prerogatives, conditions and classifications in grade, as well as the rights of union representations. The group also has an interesting, extensive and comprehensive system of social guarantees, which bears many similarities to the Italian fund for redundancies of the financial sector.

Filip Dorssemont highlighted an alarming risk of transfers, mergers and acquisitions. Transferees may circumvent their obligations under Directive 2001/23 concerning the employees of the transferor and related legal restrictions and classifications in grade simply by letting the acquired company go bankrupt. This would eliminate all the guarantees contained in Directive 2001/23 concerning workers’ rights. In the case of the Santander group, this risk did not materialize, also because the bankruptcy of a company in this sector would imply a systemic instability that could not be compared with a bankruptcy in other sectors.

Filip analyzed the connections between Directive 2001/23 (with its provisions on the right of information and consultation), with the “mother” Directive 2002/12 and the one on collective dismissals (transposed into national law in Italy through Law no. 223 of 1991). In the end, he expressed a very positive judgement about the Santander/Banco Popular case.

Another paradigmatic case of transnational merger which we discussed was the one between Unicredit and the German bank HypoVereinsBank. There is indeed a gap in the level and timeliness of access to information between the German workers’ representatives (who benefit from the German law on co-determination) and the Italian ones – and of other countries – who do not have access to the same information.

This gap is present not only in the cases of transnational merger, but in general in all the EWCs having a German representation. This causes major contradictions, which are often impossible to solve within a EWC. These points were raised by Angelo Di Cristo and Claudio Cornelli respectively.

At this point, I mentioned the need and urgency to renegotiate all the surviving EWC Agreements based on art. 13 of Directive 94/45. It is indeed very easy to disprove the typical objection of managers who consider the so-called voluntary Agreements signed between 1994 and 1996 as “immortal”.

After this observation, there was a fruitful exchange of views among attendees about the items on the agenda. We took the opportunity to give the floor to the Italian unitary trade union representation of Intesa SanPaolo. In particular, we asked them to inform us on:

1. the 2018-2021 Business Plan

2. the Agreement on Sustainable Development

Silvia Boniardi, Claudia Fumagalli and Caterina Dotto took the floor on behalf of Uilca, Fisac-Cgil and First-Cisl respectively (the three unions in the unitary representation).

Their speeches were perfectly in line with the key points of the Project and, in particular, with one of its fundamental political pillars, i.e. the new composition of the workforce of banks following the evolution towards the 4.0 industry. Change is causing major employment issues in the entire traditional segment of the production cycle. Most standard jobs with none to little added value have been outsourced or completely automated. However, some still exist, as is the case in traditional branches and in the back office of Central Departments. These segments of the production cycle employ relatively old workers, who can hardly be redeployed to tasks with a higher added value. As trade unions, I think we can only negotiate a number of guarantees that can protect the income and the pensions of these older workers. This has been the case, for instance, in Italy in recent decades.

However, at the same time industry 4.0 change leads to the emergence of a new workforce in banks, or to the renewal of part of the existing workforce. Through smart working, digitization, teleworking, new jobs which combine the characteristics of employees with time management schemes and tasks more typical of self-employment, this new workforce is necessarily more flexible when it comes to working hours and place of work. However, the added value of this new workforce is based on specialist professional skills, which can open up important opportunities of career advancement and pay rise.

The role of trade unions at a national level and, even more so, at a company level is to represent both types of workers: the traditional workforce and the “smart” one of industry 4.0. In other words, trade unions must protect the former from the repercussions of marginalization and expulsion from the production cycle. At the same time, they must meet the needs and expectations of the new workforce. If trade unions fail to do so, this new workforce would only have management (up to the top levels) as its only interlocutor.

The unitary trade union representation of Intesa SanPaolo has accepted these formidable challenges and it is addressing them through constant collective bargaining. In this way, it is somehow governing the inevitable job cuts. Redundancies are not traumatic, thanks to a more or less immediate transition towards retirement. Furthermore, workers who have yet to reach their retirement age are gradually retrained and redeployed. Finally, the demand for qualified workers, with the new skills required by innovation 4.0, attracts young and motivated people. Now the key challenge for the future of trade unions is to effectively represent these young workers. These segments of workers are changing the internal labour market towards an Anglo-American model – albeit with a major difference. Within Intesa SanPaolo, the unitary trade union representation keeps on playing a key role in collective bargaining and for the protection of individual rights.

The so-called Mixed Contract described by Claudia Fumagalli on behalf of the unitary representation is a completely new tool that bears testament to the courage of trade unions, which took up a difficult and unpopular challenge. The unions came up with an example of best practice in terms of collective bargaining for these hybrid forms which combine the characteristics of employees and self-employed. Otherwise, management would have unilaterally controlled relations with these workers, thus excluding trade unions not only from collective bargaining, but also from the possibility of effectively representing these more dynamic, younger and more qualified workers. The latter are the first wave of a new, changing workforce, which requires trade unions to change at the same speed.

Intesa SanPaolo now has more than 91,000 employees, 68,000 of whom in Italy: almost 6,000 of them are financial advisers, i.e. purely self-employed. Furthermore, according to the Business Plan, 70% of activities will be digitized by 2021.

The 23,000 employees working outside Italy account for 11% of the group profits, i.e. almost 1 billion Euro. The Business Plan foresees growing revenues in particular in foreign subsidiaries.

It is in this framework that procedures for the setting up of the EWC of Intesa SanPaolo were officially launched. The letter drawn up in accordance with Directive 2009/38 and with the Italian transposing act was signed by 11 trade unions from 7 European countries.

In Belgrade we specifically dedicated some time to the exchange of views and information among all the union representatives of the group from the 7 signatory countries. This interaction somehow anticipated the future preparatory meetings for the setting up of the EWC.

The room we have given to Intesa Sanpaolo unions had two main meanings:

1. Taking advantage of the Belgrade location to gather union delegates representing as many countries as possible, where Intesa Sanpaolo group employs workforce. As a matter of fact, we had delegates from Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Albania, Serbia (among the most relevant countries for this group apart from Italy) and of course delegates from Italy representing the five main unions holding industrial relations with the central management. Therefore, this wide group of Intesa Sanpaolo union delegates was a sort of embryo of the T.U.A (Trade Union Allliance) which we finally created in October 2019, as already pointed out in the box about the goals of the project.

1. This was the first opportunity to have an articulated exchange of information and experience in the matter.

The fourth and last session of the Belgrade Plenary began with the speeches by Gabriele Poeta Paccati and Daniele Quiriconi, the Secretaries-General of Fisac-Cgil in Milan and in Tuscany.

Their presentations were extremely relevant to our European Project. They informed us of the results of two field surveys carried out among 1,000 workers of the financial sector who are experiencing the changes brought about by industry 4.0 in their daily work.

First, Gabriele explained the survey methodology. The study was carried out in collaboration with a specialized research institute which made sure that everything was scientifically and statistically correct. The workers were interviewed directly by union representatives, in order to help trade unions independently acquire information to be used during dialogue with the social partners. In this way, trade unions would no longer have to rely on information pre-packaged by others (including by external research institutes) and would be more autonomous for analysis tasks.

The fact that we are experiencing a change which we wanted to anticipate is due to its speed. The finance industry is a sector in which digitization has advanced more pervasively than in others and with a stronger and sharper impact on employment. Hence, trade unions are now inevitably called to strongly improve their ability to listen to workers, in such a way to improve their organization and to be able to represent the demands of this new workforce segment. The training of union officers is a fundamental aspect of the survey carried out by the Fisac-Cgil section of Milan. The goal of training is to empower union officers to represent both the workers worried of being marginalized by digital innovation and the workers who are positively motivated by innovation. As we have been saying since our presentation of the Project to the European Commission more than one year ago, this innovation is promoting an increased autonomy in time management and work goals, richer work contents, more flexible borders between the typical employee and the self-employed, fewer space and time constraints compared to traditional workplaces, and more prospects and opportunities of pay rises linked to performance. However, contradictory elements to what is listed above surprisingly remain: more controls on workers, excessive bureaucracy, as well as more intense working patterns, combined with strong pressure on sales results.

Daniele Quiriconi, Secretary-General of Fisac-Cgil in Tuscany, presented the results of two surveys carried out by his section. In particular, he highlighted the following points: the impact of change on stress at work, the negative consequences for workers’ health, the subjective perception of workers, with a prevalence of feelings of insecurity, precariousness and sales pressure, which leads them to ask for more protection – both of their current working conditions and of future work prospects. Therefore, the key point is to use collective bargaining to make the most of the flexibility of smart working. While innovation responds to the workers’ need for increased independence and work-life balance, it is also necessary to build new forms of protection (including for individuals) and new forms of workers’ representation. However, during negotiations, we must be able to establish the workers’ right to disconnect as quickly as possible. It is only in this way that trade unions will be able to meet the new demand for protection and to respond to the isolation of workers, the flip side of the increased autonomy given by smart working.

The participants of the concluding Round Table on the possible proposals of this Project to the Agenda of European Social Dialogue in the Banking sector were: Angelo Di Cristo (Head of UNI Finance), William Portelli and Adrian Soare (respectively the Coordinator for UNI Finance Banking Social Dialogue committee and a member of the working party on Banking Social Dialogue) and Claudio Cornelli (National Secretary of Fisac-Cgil).

Because of a sudden health issue, Jens Thau, President of the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the European Banking Federation, was not able to attend the meeting. However, he sent us a presentation which we are going to share together with all the other presentations of the Belgrade Plenary. It is important to underline at least one point of his presentation, i.e. that the biggest European Federation of employers in our sector seems open to a constructive dialogue on our proposal for the Agenda of Banking Social Dialogue.

In the Round Table – albeit indirectly – we replied to Jens Thau’s presentation.

Angelo Di Cristo pointed out that European Social Dialogue in the Banking sector cannot address collective bargaining. However, it can at least lead to the elaboration of Joint Statements and Guidelines, which will be effective in so far as they are implemented in National Agreements. Giving continuity to, monitoring and evaluating the actual implementation of the results of Banking Social Dialogue is fundamental to assess its effectiveness and substance.

I deemed it important to underline that, in the framework of Banking Social Dialogue, the sense of this Project lies in the involvement of transnational groups. This is indeed where change happens and where dialogue should occur first. It is in transnational groups that European Social Dialogue in the Banking sector must be concretely implemented – of course keeping in mind the different roles and levels of representation of both parties.

All the participants in the Round Table agreed with this approach.

Adrian Soare, on behalf of the Romanian trade unions, stressed the battle which trade unions of Central and Eastern Europe must wage to counter the anti-European attitude of corporate managers and of national employers’ associations, as well as to demand the full implementation of the results of Banking Social Dialogue in their national companies.

Claudio Cornelli highlighted the contradiction between the constructive attitude of the European Banking Federation and the actual behaviours of multinational companies, which have ignored workers’ and trade unions’ rights, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. In this regard, political institutions – starting from the newly elected European Parliament – must take the responsibility of making these rights and the procedures laid down in Directives binding.

In our Fitness Check we are going to directly involve MEPs who are willing to collaborate with us, as well as employers’ representatives from major transnational groups. Angelo Di Cristo, on behalf of UNI Finance, immediately expressed his willingness to work with Fisac-Cgil to have this conversation at the next Plenary, which will take place in Rome on 13-14-15 November.

Claudio Cornelli, on behalf of the National Secretariat of Fisac-Cgil, closed the Belgrade Plenary. In his closing remarks, he highlighted the value and potential of this European Project, which will require our trade unions – including Fisac-Cgil – to work hard and to seek the collaboration of the European political institutions.

Of course, our work must be supported by UNI, UNI Europa and UNI Finance. Furthermore, we need to constantly insist in order for the role of European and international trade unions which have received a transparent and democratic mandate from their affiliates to be acknowledged in negotiations with employers.

Claudio also proposed another two points to work on:

1. to fight in all the EWCs which are still stuck on voluntary Agreements based on art. 13 of Directive 94/45 to adapt them to the provisions of the current Directive 2009/38;

1. to constantly promote cohesion in every transnational group, in such a way to have homogeneous rights, guarantees, working conditions and industrial relations. Of course, homogenization should strive for higher – not lower – common standards.

Both points have been contemplated in the drawing up of our Project and we have committed ourselves to working on them also in the contract we signed with the European Commission, which funds the Project.

Mario Ongaro European Project Director ISRF-LAB

Again on the fitness check

We have been able to take advantage of Prof.Dorssemont lessons, but also to build up our own analysis, in order to draw our own proposals to contribute to the Fitness Check of the Directives concerning the Employee involvement.

The crucial issue about the FITNESS CHECK is however what the EU Commission really meant with it:

Was the Fitness Check a way to check whether or not the Employee Involvement is actually working through the concerned Directives, up to what extent it is working, what the points in these Directives should be reviewed and possibly amended?

Or was it a way just to simplify/deregulate a number of prescriptions provided for by those Directives? Or both ways, depending on the individual Directive and/or on the political balances within the Commission and the EU Parliament?

When we introduced this Project almost 3 years ago, our answer to the first question here above was YES and we had no more questions. The other two questions, nevertheless, have been the outcome of our analysis about what has actually and concretely been done in terms of the Fitness Check. This Project was anyway meant to contribute to the Fitness Check and this contribution will be explained later, when we get to the outcomes of the Project Events that took place in Rome.

Goal VI of this Project

Find out the common denominator among the TCAs made (or under way) by the participating EWCs in order to build up possible draft TCAs concerning the main issues of the Project through the contribution both of the participating EWCs and of the national/company unions involved;

TCA (Transnational Company Agreement) & Joint Declarations

we had planned to write a sort of Model TCA on the basis of the guidelines that Uni Europa approved in its 2016 Congress. However we were then able to discover that the various TCAs (or more precisely Joint Declarations) that the EWCs participating in the Project had delivered to us, Project staff, were very much tailored on their own specific context as transnational group. The Uni Europa guidelines actually were motivated by two main concerns:

1) No EU Directive actually rules TCAs so that (and this is the 2nd concern)

a number of EWCs have made a kind of negotiation activity off their own institutional mission (information/consultation) and off any trade-union control and role. As a matter of fact however all Joint Declarations in all the seven EWCs participating in the Project were made and led by genuine trade-unions reps, therefore actually meeting the Uni Europa demand.

Triad: TCAs, EWCs, TUAs (Trade-Union Alliances): On the basis of the concern here above mentioned about an improper negotiating role of EWCs vs. a marginalization of EU trade-union federations in TCAs, this triad may well work as an effective practice to go forward with transnational company agreements by meeting the European trade-unions' concerns about an activity that EWCs are not entitled to, but at the same time by enabling the national unions allied "around" a specific EWC to join the unionised members of that EWC in a kind of negotiating activity.

We here have to explain that the T.U.A. is a network either cooperating with a EWC or fostering the setting up of a new EWC.

The T.U.A. is made of trade-union officers from the national unions that are indirectly represented in a EWC through its unionised members.

In this respect therefore UNI EUROPA gets a relevant result: it implements a practice to meet the 2009/38 article 12 LINK between transnational level and national levels of information and consultation.

On top of that it provides a concrete political coverage to the unionised members of the concerned EWC whenever an opportunity to negotiate a T.C.A. is envisaged.

Such negotiation would not be made by the EWC but by a recognised trade- unions' negotiating body, the T.U.A., which gets EWC members and their respective national unions reps together. We got this innovative procedure through an in-depth exchange of views with Angelo Di Cristo, Head of Uni Finance, therefore one qualified representative of the UNI guidelines mentioned above.

JOINT DECLARATIONS:

they are at a bit lower level than the agreements (TCAs), but they can be effective when the social partners at national level introduce the content of such Joint Declariations into their concerned National Sectoral Collective Agreement, or when the same work is done in the framework of Group Collective Agreement. Joint Declarations are a stepping stone, their form is not juridical but their content is, as long as it provides for rights and obligations This should be the case of the Joint Declaration on Telework and the right to disconnect which has been introduced in the National Collective Agreement for baank workers in Italy. This can be the case of the one on Digitalization in banking and insurance industries (two different EU Sectoral S.D.tables).

TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKINGS, INTERNATIONAL MERGER, SOCIAL PLAN FOR THE TRANSFEREE, SURVIVING “VOLUNTARY” EWC AGREEMENTS

An important reflection, also in terms of international merger, has been the outcome from the Presentation of the case Banco Santander/Banco Popular, where the transferees from Banco Popular were strongly protected through a Social Plan negotiated by the Spanish unions in 2017.

Actually neither the 2001/23 nor the 98/599 Directives provide for such a Social Plan. From this point of view our 4 points Document has to be read also in order to fill a possible gap in these Directives too, beyond the 2009/38.

THE ABOVE MENTIONED RESULTS CONCERNING OUR ORIGINAL GOALS II, and III, already mentioned talking about the outcomes from SOFIA, have strongly and deeply increased the awareness of all our participants namely the EWC reps ones, their ability to manage the Agreements ruling their own EWC and to distinguish between the limits and potentials of such Agreements on the one hand, and the current + past practices and relationship with the Management in their own EWC, so that it has become definitely clear what the distance (and sometimes the contradiction) is between the Agreement quality and those practices on the other hand.

I mean that on the one hand we got a confirmation about our original statement of practices undermining and misusing the rights provided for by the Agreement and by the Directive, but on the other hand sometimes we found that practices were/are good in spite of the poor quality of the Agreement, often negotiated under the infamous article 13 of the 94/45 Directive. The latter situation is just due to the a union friendly or open minded contact person from the Management of that transnational group who was/is in charge

of the EWC, therefore we are talking about a necessarily rather temporary than steady situation. The most balanced situation is probably the one of Unicredit Group and of Crédit Agricole EWCs, where both the concerned Agreements and the good practices of information and consultation show a correct implementation of the Agreement itself and an alive/proactive attitude by both the social partners.

Having analysed all what reported here above has been a clear incentive to renegotiate obsolete EWC Agreements in those groups where they were still made under the infamous article 13 has definitely come from our Project, even if the renegotiation of a EWC Agreement is always an issue very much depending not only on the employer's willingness but also on the different members/nations/unions which are represented in the concerned EWC.

HOWEVER, the so called Voluntary Agreement ex article 13 of the 94/45 Directive can be modified under the provision of the 2009/38 one by using 2 arguments:

the company for which that Voluntary Agreement was signed no longer exists in terms of geographical area and in terms of transnational group, this is almost always the case

being the definition and procedure of information and consultation the real core of the current Directive, such definition at least can be incorporated in the old Voluntary Agreement even if formally it is not modified.

AGAIN ON NEW MEMBER STATES AND ACCESSION COUNTRIES:

We have got reports from Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Malta.

All countries seem to have in common quite a high GDP increase rate compared to most of the western EU countries, they of course have been and still are suffering from the economic and social consequences of the pandemic emergency but again they seem to be recovering quite well.

The grey zones and the dark zones of such a comfortable picture are again the industrial relations where the right to collective bargaining is too often denied, especially at the level of national/sectoral collective agreements.

But again among the various countries we can distinguish relevant differences from this point of view, when for instance we understand that in Slovakia the national collective bargaining in finace industry has been denied since 2016 in spite of all the trade-union campaigns including the Uni Finance ones, while in Romania they have obtained this negotiation level and have been able to sign their own national collective agreement fo finance industry employees. EWCs will have to work as effective tools able to help overtaking these serious shortcomings, but one big issue from this point of view remains the Intesa SanPaolo Group which controls a lot of banks all over that region and whose central management still refuses to open the negotiation to set up a EWC.

We, as concerned unions for this groups, have already built our Trade-Union Alliance, under Uni Finance umbrella, involving all of us representing Intesa SanPaolo group employees all over Europe. Now the time has come to decide whether or not it would be worthwhile to impose the EWC through the Subsidiary Requirements of the 2009/38 Directive.

Another two points deserve to be stressed concerning this goal IV dedicated to these EU Countries:

one point is:

EWC national laws: trade-union role is strongly recognised in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, also in Germany and Scandinavian countries even if through the dual channel of employees' representatives.

another point mainly concerning new Member States and accession countries is:

Representativeness national laws conflicting with information/consultation rights when they prevent a union with less than 50% unionised employees to be recognised: An infringement procedure was opened years ago for UK in this respect. Similar procedures should be opened towards quite a number of other EU countries in similar conditions.

In conclusion:

Our action has been a further contribution to increase and deepen the inclusive cooperation and solidarity with the finance unions of the entire region where the new member states and the accession countries are. This action indeed has to be framed in a policy that we started in 2004 towards the unions from these countries, i.e. at the time of the first phase of the Enlargement of the EU. These unions are aware that a number of major problems and issues need of course a much more powerful process too be faced and possibly solved, but they do enjoy a very reliable and solid support by a union like Fisac-Cgil about their day-by-day engagement to represent and organise the concerned employees in their country and implement collective bargaining on behalf of them, within their national contexts which are definitely much more challenging than ours in terms of union rights and facilities.

Mario Ongaro

Rome 13ᵗʰ -14ᵗʰ -15ᵗʰ  November 2019

Goal V of this Project

Involve relevant social partners (top management in the participating transnational groups and EU Employers' Federations) + Union institutions reps (such as EU Parliament members) in our analysis' findings in order to strengthen transnational cooperation and support the effectiveness of EU law on employee involvement.

We have been able to involve the EBF (European Banking Federation) as far as its BCESA (Banking Cttee for European Social Affairs) is concerned, with its President Jens Thau and ts member Giancarlo Ferrara also representing ABI the Italian Banking Association . We have also been able to involve the top Management of Unicredit Group and of Intesa SanPaolo Group. The other groups' management were not available in spite of the efforts made by Uni Finance too in this respect, but we have to take into account that this Project is not a Joint one, it is just a trade-union Project where the employers' participation can't be binding at all. In this respect therefore the quality and high level of employers' participation we have been able to count on did mean a genuine and substantial support to the Project and to its final objectives.

On top of that the E.B.F. had formally endorsed the Project since its very beginning by subscribing and sending us their own engagement letter.

At the same time we ensured the support to our Project by the MEP Brando Benifei who supported past Projects of ours as well.

AGAIN ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF SOCIAL PARTNERS

Even if Intesa SanPaolo responsibles for Industrial Relations participated in one of our Plenaries, we have No Intesa SanPaolo EWC as yet, which clearly shows a stubborn resistence by this Group Management against the opportunity to set up the EWC.

However through this Project, as already remarked, we have been able to set up the Trade-Union Alliance of the Group and we sent the letter to open the procedure to negotiate the setting up of the EWC as per the procudure provided for by the 2009/38 Directive.

This letter has been signed by the unions from ALL the EU countries where Intesa SanPaolo has got employees.

In this respect through this Project we have given a strong political input to the setting up of this very EWC.

Time will tell whether we should use the Subsidiary Requirements to impose this EWC, or we will be able to remove that stubborn resistance and open a normal negotiation.

Mario Ongaro.

State of play and follow-up Rome, 13-14-15.11.2019

DIGITIZATION: BETWEEN MYTH AND REALITY

The reflection on digitization in the finance industry started from an analysis aimed at understanding its role – possibly also in a historical perspective – in the framework of the wider process of “Great Transformation” occurring in this sector. Free from any marketing-oriented approach – supported and promoted by large international strategy consulting groups – we believe that digitization, automation and technological innovation are the only possible ways to tackle three major challenges.

In the first place, digitization has been (and still is) the natural ally of the strategies based on cutting branches and staff which all European banks have adopted in response to the crisis. ISRF LAB, a partner to the Project, has – a bit provocatively – described this strategy as “Less4More”. Basically, while the finance industry was reorganizing, digitization made up for the laying off of 12% of employees and the closing down of 21% of branches in the EU. Therefore, digitization helped finance groups regain profitability. Together with NPL management, digitization actually played a decisive role in going back to acceptable profit rates for investors and management – in spite of an expansive monetary policy and of the creation of a comprehensive and centralized European model of regulation and supervision.

Like the reorganization process, digital innovation has had – and will increasingly have – an impact on another two elements. Firstly, new technologies, new apps and new access tools are three of the most significant demands of new, “hyperconnected” consumers. Even if it is obvious that consumers’ demands are in part influenced by the aggressive and pervasive marketing techniques used by digital ecosystem enterprises, it is also true that functionality, ease of use and convenience are three fundamental goals for any advanced service company striving to stay competitive.

Secondly, the market challenge posed by Big Tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, the Chinese giants Tencent and Alibaba, etc.) is certainly a key test case for the finance industry. The strategy of Big Tech companies – integration in existing platforms, decentralization and disintermediation – can hardly be reconciled with a heavily regulated sector which would actually require more rules on issues like derivatives, safeguards for clients and employees, transparency. This is the challenge of the future, which should not be tackled merely with a market-based approach. On the contrary, it requires all stakeholders – businesses, trade unions, political institutions and regulatory authorities – to work together to prevent the “creative destruction” process of Big Tech companies from overwhelming the finance industry and sweeping away all employment guarantees, workers’ rights and consumers’ rights.

EUROPEAN DIRECTIVES ON EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT

The analysis of professor Dorssemont, an expert in EU law involved in the Project, focused on the critical aspects of EWC Directives and ensuing “pararegulatory” instruments (Global Framework Agreements and Joint Statements).

First and foremost, the instruments provided for by the European Directives are inherently weak. In the daily practices of EWCs, this has translated into an excess of information and insufficient consultation. This means that trade unions have often been involved only at a late stage, when the strategies of a business plan or reorganization process have already been decided and are about to be implemented. As a result, within EWCs – not only in the banking sector – the behaviour of management has often undermined the workers’ right to consultation, replacing it with one-way communication. Furthermore, practices change considerably from one EWC to the other and participation in EWCs has also been “artificially” restricted in several ways, in particular for representatives of companies owned for less than 50% by large European banks (EWC Directives may not be applied under this percentage).

The difficulties in the interpretation of EWC Directives have had an impact on the “pararegulatory” instruments elaborated at a supranational or EWC level in the last twenty years. The analysis of professor Dorssemont highlighted that the definitions used by the European legislator with regard to social dialogue are inherently ambiguous. The Fitness Check, i.e. the process defined at the EU level to assess whether the regulatory framework for a policy sector is fit for purpose, actually opens the way to deregulation and, speaking of legislation on workers’ rights and trade union rights, it could further weaken the role of EWCs in the future.

In this respect, through this Project we want to make our contribution to the Fitness Check by providing some elements of analysis and proposals to improve the effectiveness and applicability of Directives on employee involvement in the changing work environment within the 4.0 finance industry.

With the help and expertise of professor Dorssemont, we analyzed relevant Directives, as well as related regulatory and social dialogue instruments created within the EWCs involved in the Project and in the framework of industry-wide and general European Social Dialogue.

During the second Plenary (Rome, 13-15 November), with the help of professor Dorssemont, we would like to identify the critical aspects in the implementation of the Directives, in order to elaborate detailed proposals to rewrite or integrate specific parts of the Directives, or proposals for an implementing regulation of the Directives.

THE DEBATE AND THE INVOLVEMENT OF SOCIAL PARTNERS AND EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

The first point emerging from the debate is diversity across countries, both in terms of labour and trade union law and in terms of participation in strategic decisions. In particular, the disparity between Eastern and Western Europe is still very serious. Eastern European countries keep on having difficulties deriving from a legislation which makes it much harder to protect workers and to set up negotiating bodies. These problems then affect EWCs, whose hardships cannot be attributed to the willingness of trade unions to represent workers with different rights, different salaries and different working conditions.

With respect to EWCs, the issue of national differences was discussed by the representatives of all the countries involved in the Project. In particular, the debate highlighted that there are some inequalities in access to information between workers’ representatives from different countries, especially as far as the German co-determination model is concerned.

With respect to digitization, the debate emphasized that, through their role and their actions, trade unions should help take the opportunities opened up by this force of transformation. In other words, modernity should not be detrimental to workers, but it should become a springboard for strengthening the role of trade unions and for improving workers’ conditions. However, trade unions must first analyze more in depth certain elements. Firstly, it is necessary to have a more structured view of the changes brought about by digitization in the world of work. For instance, the disappearance of some jobs is balanced by the emergence of new jobs, new activities and new professional skills. All in all, modernization alone does not completely eliminate the need for the human factor. Especially in the banking sector, the more simple operations at the counter disappear, the higher the need is for professional advice in the management of increasingly complex financial products. Therefore, workers need to acquire new professional skills. To this purpose, they need help with retraining, continuing professional development and training (which should be seen as an investment). This would also promote a more effective collaboration between the older generations of bank workers, who acquire new skills and reorganize their professional lives, and the digital natives, who are already familiar with new technologies and have an open mindset towards them.

In this regard, it is of paramount importance to govern the digitization process effectively with a view to rebuilding a joint governance of change in the finance industry. In order to anticipate – and not to suffer – change, Agostino Megale, President of ISRF Lab, put forward a proposal for a “Regulatory-Institutional Sequence” bringing together the needs for a Europe-wide information activity and for “macro” social plans and the national dimension through industry-wide coordination units. At the national company level, efforts for employee involvement and participatory democracy should strive to engage the trade unions and workers’ representatives of the various countries before the launch of business plans, in order to discuss and assess their effects and consequences in advance and to take pre-emptive actions together.

Another element of discussion concerned the internal yet strategic issue of generational replacement in trade unions. Even if with some differences from one country to the other, all participants emphasized that it is extremely difficult to involve young generations of bank workers in trade unions, as well as – and even more so – to select future union officers capable of bringing the added value that is necessary to manage digitization processes in the finance industry. This key problem is also related with the issue of the skills needed for collective bargaining in a profoundly changed environment. During negotiations, companies adopt a more and more technical approach. This certainly poses a threat, because technicalizing is an attempt to keep more genuinely political and social issues off the table. However, it is clear that re-skilling is truly necessary also for union officers and trade unions as a whole.

The second Plenary (Rome, 13-15 November) will include a discussion with representatives of the employers’ side. Some of them participate in some of the EWCs involved in our Project, while others are active in the European employers’ association of the banking sector. In addition, we will host a Member of the European Parliament, elected on 26 May, who sits in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.

First of all, with our social partners we would like to elaborate joint proposals for the Fitness Check of the EWC Directives and link them with our more general request for joint discussions aimed at anticipating and governing change.

Then, we would like to ask the Member of the European Parliament what opportunities we have to work with the current European Parliament and Commission for the adoption of our proposals and to support us in this long journey.

INTRODUCTORY REPORT - Rome, 13th November 2019

Welcome!

Good afternoon to all of you! It is very nice to be back together after the Belgrade Plenary and to see some new faces. In particular, I would like to give a warm welcome to Monica Carta, Head of International Social Dialogue for the Unicredit group.

Jens Thau will join us later this evening in his double capacity of President of the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the European Banking Federation and of Representative of the German Banking Association.

During the Round Table of Friday morning, we will also be joined by Emanuele Recchia and Patrizia Ordasso, Heads of Industrial Relations for Unicredit and Intesa SanPaolo respectively.

The participation of several highly qualified social partners and employers’ representatives from our sector bears testament to the importance and usefulness of what we are trying to do through this European Project. It is also a distinctive trait of our Second Plenary, which I am going to talk about later in my speech.

I would also like to give a warm welcome to the trade union representatives who either were not able to join us last time or who participate for the first time in our Project: Elena Cherubini, member of the Secretariat of the Central Coordination Unit for Fisac-Cgil in Intesa SanPaolo; Bianca Cuciniello from the Groupama EWC Secretariat; Meral Gunenc from the National Secretariat of Basisen, the Turkish trade union of the financial sector (with whom we have been good friends for 25 years already); Ana Herranz from the National Secretariat of Servicios CcOo; Agostino Megale, President of the research institute ISRF LAB of Fisac-Cgil and former Secretary-General of Fisac-Cgil; Marcello Carcereri from the Santander EWC; and Stefano Di Dio.

I do not intend to illustrate the stages of the Project up to now, as I think that Roberto Errico and Stefano Di Dio will give you a systematic and comprehensive overview.

Employment perspectives in the 4.0 change

I would like to focus on a couple of central elements for this Project. First, the Project was elaborated with the idea in mind that industry 4.0 change can be seen both as a problem – a very serious one in some regards – and as an opportunity for positive developments. The key point is to understand to which extent it is a problem and to which extent it is an opportunity.

Very schematically, the issue for us is to quantify the number of jobs which have already been lost and which will be lost in our sector in the next 5 years.

Furthermore, we have to disaggregate the overall figure to analyse more specific elements: the number of jobs lost in the various segments of the banking production cycle; the workforce segments who have been and who will be most affected by the digitization trend; the organization of banks across different geographical regions; and disintermediation – all this in a phase in which work productivity in banks is increasing and can only increase through job cuts.

But is that really so?

We believe that this is not true.

We actually believe that changes in work organization also bring about some interesting opportunities, which trade unions must be able to grasp, examine and organize.

A new segment of 4.0 workforce

I am referring to the workforce segments that, thanks to innovation, can now combine skills and productivity with a relative independence in the management of working hours and of ways to reach production targets (which they certainly cannot decide on their own, but which are imposed on them).

In this situation, the borders between the typical employee and the self-employed are blurred.

New forms of flexibility emerge in which, in my opinion, the subjective, individual dimension of employees plays a key role (especially for women).

Their age, determination to experiment something new and to pursue professional growth and an increased remuneration (with a significant – even if not decisive – variable portion) are important factors.

Equally important are their relational skills, as they are asked to build trust with clients. This trust is constantly tested in the light of the results obtained by clients through their investments. And an important aspect is that clients trust the person representing the bank even more than the bank where this person works.

In this Project we decided to focus on these new professional figures, also to promote (and I am saying it explicitly) a best practice in terms of negotiations with management, i.e. the internal Agreement of Intesa SanPaolo. The Agreement was presented by our colleagues from the unitary trade union representation of Intesa SanPaolo during the Belgrade Plenary last June.

But our focus is more on trade unions as a negotiating party than on the training needs of union representatives, who must be able to organize and effectively represent this innovative, highly-skilled segment of the banking workforce.

In this regard, during this event I will repeatedly remind you that, in view of the March 2020 deadline, in your capacity of EWC representatives, you will have to select a worker to accompany you to Rome on the third weekend of March. On that occasion, we will be glad to listen directly to their stories and experience at work in the 4.0 era.

I am aware that this may not be an easy task. However, I am confident that, thanks to your experience and network of links with trade union affiliates, you will be able to find someone willing to come to Rome for a couple of days on a weekend (without necessarily having to take leave) and to tell us about their experience. Their input will give us some food for thought and some valuable elements for our work. Of course, in accordance with our budget rules, we will bear all the costs arising from their participation, i.e. travel, accommodation and interpreting (only between English and Italian).

I will repeat this request also in the coming days.

The employers’ reps’ participation in our Project

I am also aware that some of you may be thinking that I am repeating several things, such as the distinction between obsolescent workforce and a more forward-looking workforce...While this may be true, the key point at this stage of the Project is not only to raise these issues among union officers, but to discuss them with our social partners, i.e. the representatives of transnational groups and European employers’ associations.

This is something that should be added to the information and consultation procedures we have at a group and at a European level and to the topics discussed in the framework of industry-wide social dialogue.

After the meetings we organized in Sofia last April and in Belgrade last June, this is the first time that we have employers’ representatives with us (with some of them we have already had a fruitful exchange for many years). Let us try to have a conversation on the management of changes in work organization and on European legislation (Directives on employee involvement).

These are two different, yet intertwined levels that must be combined together. It is indeed only through an effective, joint implementation by the social partners of the European legislation we are discussing that we can govern change, adapt to the speed of change and – to a certain extent and for some strategic aspects – anticipate it.

Capitalism to be reformed?

A few days ago, Corrado Passera took an interview in which he argued that capitalism must imperatively change to better protect and promote the common good and abandon neoliberalism once and for all. Failure to do so would lead to worse disasters than the ones we experienced in the past decade. Corrado Passera also pointed the finger at the growing and unbearable inequalities and irrational concentration of wealth and power which the free market – if seen as an absolute – and politics – if they support it and become subordinate to it – have brought about.

I am quoting him not only because he was a very important manager and entrepreneur in our sector, but also because I think that his is a very useful, concrete and not at all ideological approach. In this regard, I think that our Project – albeit on a small scale – will provide some valuable arguments.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing implosion of the Soviet Union, on the one hand, I think that we all agree that it would be foolish to go back to the juxtaposition of social and economic models (today, I believe that, while we need to distance ourselves from real socialism, the analysis of Karl Marx deserves to be rediscovered).

On the other hand, it is also evident that the ideological and propagandistic infatuation with deregulation and the free market has actually led the whole world to an oligopolistic and monopolistic concentration. This concentration has not only reduced the income and rights of an increasing share of workers, but it is also gradually destroying freedom of enterprise and free competition, i.e. the founding values of capitalism which the current economic and political developments are increasingly and concretely threatening.

Therefore, as social partners we must discuss industry 4.0 changes and find joint instruments, negotiation and legislation tools at a European level to try to govern the impact of change and control its direction. We must also encourage MEPs to propose a reform of the European Directives on employee involvement. To this purpose, we are going to carry out our own fitness check, so as to contribute to the fitness check recently launched by the European Commission. We may also be openly critical, if we conclude that Professor Dorssemont is right to warn us that the fitness check is actually a way to propose deregulation and to dismantle the Directives. According to him, if the fitness check demonstrates that the Directives are not as effective as expected, the European Commission will simply try to drastically simplify them and to abolish some of their provisions.

We will make our contribution during the Round Table on Friday morning, but tomorrow we will already start to work in that direction. We will have speeches by Monica Carta and Jens Thau. They will be followed by the lecture of Filip Dorssemont, who unfortunately will not be here with us, but connected from the University where he works. Nonetheless, I am confident that his lecture will be just as effective as if he was here in person.

Tomorrow afternoon we will have an exchange of views on Professor Dorssemont’s lecture (by the way, you have already received an email with a draft version of his lecture, with the main points he will address). He will continue to follow us remotely during our open discussion. This will be the first opportunity for us to work together on reform proposals we may agree on with our social partners. We will then have other opportunities for a more in-depth discussion as we approach the conclusive Plenary of the Project in June 2020.

Today, in the afternoon, we will take stock of our progress in the Project. After my speech, we will not just check the materials and documentation we have collected so far. We certainly have an impressive amount of high-quality data, presentations, studies and speeches on the Drive folder of our Project. However, all this material should be fit for use and be used by all of you. Today, we will also check if this the case and we will try to fix any flaws and take any other necessary measures to favour usage of the documentation.

This check will be followed by the speeches of Roberto Errico and Stefano Di Dio on the state of the art of the Project and its immediate prospects.

Today we will also briefly talk about an item we had on the agenda in Belgrade, but which we did not have time to discuss. We will talk about the role of trade unions in EWCs according to the combined provisions of Directive 2009/38 and national legislations on company-level workers’ representation in the 4 countries where the 8 groups involved in the Project are based. This presentation will integrate the training/legal part of our Project with some elements drawn from the concrete experience of trade unions.

We will also be glad to listen to Meral’s presentation about Turkey, which will complete the round of presentations we had in Belgrade (where no one from Basisen was able to attend) about the new EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

Before the conclusions of Claudio Cornelli, National Secretary of Fisac-Cgil in charge of International Affairs, we will have an update on the EWCs – and more in general the transnational groups – represented here by the union officers who chair and/or coordinate them. We will start later this afternoon with Credit Agricole, Société Générale and Bnp-Paribas and we will continue with the others tomorrow morning.

The goal of having this item on the agenda is to constantly stay up-to-date on the priorities and changes occurring in the transnational groups represented here. This is necessary in order to better coordinate our actions in the framework of the Project on the basis of our experience on the ground.

13 proposals for the revision of the  Directives to improve employee involvement

by Prof. Filip Dorssemont* - University of Louvain - legal expert for our European Project (*coordinated with the Fisac Staff of the Project)

1. 1) Generalizing the wording "with a view to reaching an agreement" to the EWC Directive 2002/38 in case of information and consultation concerning proposed decisions which affect the employees' interests under exceptional circumstances from:

1. art.4.4.e) of Directive 2002/14 on the information and consultation of employees

1. art.7.2 of Directive 2001/23 on the transfer of undertakings art. 2.1 of Directive 98/59 on collective redundancies

2. Generalizing the wording "The consultation shall be conducted in such a way that the employees' representatives can meet with the central management and obtain a response, and the reasons for that response, to any opinion they might express (Directive 2009/38 on information and consultation) to the other Directives on employee involvement.

3. In case of restructuring, the Directives on employee involvement must include an obligation to information and consultation, instead of a simple "right" for workers to be informed and consulted.

4. The EU Directives on employee involvement should include corporate strategies and economic policies in the right to information and consultation, and not only their implementation.

5. The wording "information and consultation on decisions likely to lead to substantial changes in work organisation or in contractual relations, including those covered by the Community provisions referred to in Article 9(1) (Art.4.2.c of Directive 2002/14 establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees) is preferable to the wording "Where there are exceptional circumstances or decisions affecting the employees' interests to a considerable extent, particularly in the event of relocations, the closure of establishments or undertakings or collective redundancies, the select committee or, where no such committee exists, the European Works Council shall have the right to be informed" (subsidiary requirements of Recast Directive 2009/38).

6. We need to have information and consultation procedures at all levels:

1. establishment

1. undertaking

1. group of undertakings

1. Community

1. scale group of undertakings

7. Representatives of Community-level trade unions can serve as experts for the special negotiating body. This provision should be extended to their role as experts in EWCs as well.

8. Granting the right to training for workers' representatives not only at the EWC level, but also at the establishment or undertaking level.

9. Stating clearly that the costs of this training should be borne by the local and central management. Workers' representatives should also be left free to choose their training path, provided that they communicate the summary of training activities to the local and central management.

10. Generalizing the role of experts at the local as well as central level.

11. Ensuring that, if there are no workers' representatives, there is a default scenario not only in the case of transfer of undertaking, but also in the case of collective redundancies. Furthermore, making sure that, if there are no workers' representatives, a generic system for employee involvement is put in place.

12. In case of collective redundancies, Member States can choose between two different definitions. Ensuring that there is information and consultation in both scenarios or definitions of collective redundancies. Extending the definition of collective redundancies over a period of 90 days to 6 months.

Article 1 - Directive 98/59 • 1. For the purposes of this Directive: a) 'collective redundancies' means dismissals effected by an employer for one or more reasons not related to the individual workers concerned where, according to the choice of the Member States, the number of redundancies is:

1. either, over a period of 30 days:

1. at least 10 in establishments normally employing more than 20 and less than 100 workers,

1. at least 10% of the number of workers in establishments normally employing at least 100 but less than 300 workers,

1. at least 30 in establishments normally employing 300 workers or more,

1. or, over a period of 90 days, at least 20, whatever the number of workers normally employed in the establishments in question;

13. Establishing an explicit sanction in case of violation of information and consultation procedures, such as the suspension of the restructuring process.

Questions for the round table of friday

1. On the basis of your experience in your company, how would you judge the impact of European legislation on the activity of your EWC and/or more in general on industrial relations in your transnational group? (Please refer in particular to the Directives on employee involvement, but without excluding other Directives which you consider relevant in this regard)

Emanuele Recchia and Patrizia Ordasso

1. On the basis of your experience of European Social Dialogue in the Banking Sector, how would you judge the impact of European legislation on European Social Dialogue in the Banking Sector so far? (Please refer in particular to the Directives on employee involvement, but without excluding other Directives which you consider relevant in this regard). Has it been a valuable support tool? How would you judge the role of the European Commission in European Social Dialogue in the Banking Sector?

Angelo Di Cristo and Jens Thau

1. On the basis of your experience in the previous legislature and now, how would you judge the Fitness Check on the Directives on employee involvement proposed/promoted by the European Commission?

Brando Benifei

1. What are your impressions on Professor Dorssemont’s proposals on these European Directives?

Angelo Di Cristo, Jens Thau, Emanuele Recchia, Alfio Filosomi

1. Do you think it is possible for your Federations to find common ground and to work together on Professor Dorssemont’s proposals on these European Directives?

Angelo Di Cristo, Jens Thau

1. Anticipating change: from information/consultation during decision-making to participation. In your opinion, how can we manage this process and with which tools – both within your EWC and, more in general, in industrial relations in your transnational groups (starting for instance from business plans and without prejudice to confidentiality clauses)?

Emanuele Recchia, Patrizia Ordasso

1. Which consequences can the time/era of shrinking financial intermediation margins (active and passive rates), of increasing capital requirements (Basel, etc.), of the drive towards digitization have on the transnational structure of your groups, in terms of geographical extent and growth and/or reorganization prospects?

Emanuele Recchia, Patrizia Ordasso

1. After this round table, what can you do within the Committee on Employment and within the European Parliament to make European legislation more effective in promoting employee involvement? Considering the current majority and, more in general, the distribution of seats in the Parliament elected on 26 May, as well as the Agenda of the new European Commission, which alliances can you envisage on the issue of employee involvement?

Brando Benifei

MEP Brando Benifei about Dorssemont’s 13 points

Question by Mario Ongaro:

It was also thanks to the initiative we took with Brando Benifei at the end of our previous European Project VS/2015/0359, which led the Employment Committee of the European Parliament to submit a question on a possible reform of the EWC Directive, that the Commission decided to carry out a fitness check, i.e. to assess the state of implementation of Directives on employee involvement.

That was a very significant result. However, we are bit worried about the approach that seems to prevail in this fitness check (as our expert, Filip Dorssemont, warned us). The Commission seems to think that, if these Directives are not being effective, it is because they are too prescriptive, so they need to be simplified, dismantled, deregulated.

I would like to ask Brando Benifei what he thinks about it.

Brando Benifei

In the case of the EWC reform, which is what we are discussing here in connection with the fitness check, already in 2016 we expected a report from the European Commission. However, this did not happen.

During one of the meetings in which I took part, I asked the European Commission when they would perform their task. Then, also thanks to the involvement of some colleagues, the Commission decided to launch the fitness check – albeit late.

However, we are not very happy. Many of us believe that the European Commission did not consider the main critical aspects of current EWC legislation. It also failed to define a clear position on the need for a reform. Under these circumstances, a reform even risks being worse than what we already have, whereas we want to make the rules more effective.

In particular, I agree with several colleagues that there is a negative aspect in the report of the Commission, i.e. its failure to address the inconsistency between the objectives listed in the EWC Directive and their actual implementation (mostly with respect to the timeliness and completeness of information and consultation procedures). This is indeed a crucial point and any failure to address it would make the existence of EWCs useless.

I would also like to add that the approach of the European Parliament – at least of a majority of MEPs – is more in line with the approach summarized by Mario Ongaro.

The European Pillar on Social Rights, which was approved and solemnly presented in 2017 (in the final stages of the discussion which led at last to the fitness check), expressly mentions the need to promote dialogue between social partners and employee involvement in the recommendations contained in Chapter II par. 8: “workers or their representatives have the right to be informed and consulted in good time on matters relevant to them, in particular on the transfer, restructuring and merger of undertakings and on collective redundancies.”

In its accompanying report to the approval of the Pillar, the European Parliament stated very clearly that it is necessary to better monitor the actual implementation of relevant legislation in existing EWCs. Furthermore, it also highlighted the need for effective measures for an increased social responsibility in industrial reorganization processes. In my opinion, this is also one of the goals we set ourselves when we create these information and consultation mechanisms. The European Parliament also asked for a better coordination among the local, regional, national and European levels. This is necessary in order for EWCs to be able to express their opinions in good time at the various levels, in such a way for effective actions to be taken.

Then, it is also necessary to discuss the abuse of confidentiality clauses and to better define under which circumstances and for how long management can withdraw sensitive information.

All these issues require us to work with the new European Commission to discuss a possible revision and reform of Directive 2009/38.

I believe that it is now time to reopen the discussion we had with the outgoing Commissioner with the new one.

Rome, 7ᵗʰ - 8ᵗʰ October 2020

Our proposal for a revision of the EWC Directive

We resumed the collective discussion and analysis when the Steering Group of the European Project FISAC 2019/0016 met on 7-8 October 2020. Two types of stakeholders took part in this fourth event:

1. workers representative of the 4.0 segment of the banking workforce, together with their direct trade union representatives;

1. management representatives of the European banking industry.

I will get back to the role which the two stakeholders had in this meeting – and in the Project in general – shortly.

Now let’s go back to what we had discussed during our latest Plenary (i.e. the third stage of the Project) on 13-14-15 November 2019. The fourth meeting was originally scheduled for last March, but the COVID-19 emergency forced us to delay it for more than six months.

However, the COVID-19 emergency also led the EU to launch the Recovery Plan. Therefore, our Project was also revised in order to incorporate new, fundamental elements.

Below is the proposal which Agostino Megale and I had drawn up and summarized in 4 key points:

THE 4 KEY POINTS OF THE FISAC-CGIL PROPOSAL FOR A JOINT DOCUMENT BY SOCIAL PARTNERS

by Agostino Megale and Mario Ongaro

A. The European Works Council must have the right to be informed in advance of the impact which each Business Plan (including any digital innovation processes) of the transnational group will have on workers.

B. Information must be provided in particular on the potential quantitative and qualitative effects on jobs, work organization, smart working, working hours, including the changes deriving from the digital innovation of processes and products.

C. Information must be provided once the draft Business Plan has been drawn up, but well before it is officially made public, without prejudice to confidentiality clauses namely for the information potentially impacting on markets, notwithstanding the employees’ reps duties of communication.

D. This kind of procedure must allow European Works Councils to be consulted in good time on the impact of Business Plans and process innovations. It must also allow them to draw up a Social Plan to govern changes that may affect workers and generate redundancies. For instance, in this case the priority could be given to voluntary redundancies and measures could be taken to retrain and reinstate the affected workers.

Our 4 key points are combined with the 13 proposals by Professor Filip Dorssemont of the University of Louvain, the expert in European labour law who has collaborated with us during our Project. These 13 proposals concern the possible revision of not only EU Directive 2009/38, but also all the other Directives on employee involvement.

I have dedicated a specific chapter of this Report to the comparison and integration of the 4 key points and of the 13 proposals.

However, I would like to stress that it is necessary to link both the key points and the proposals to the EU Recovery Plan and, more precisely, to its part on investments in digitalization.

We will have the opportunity to discuss this point more in detail, but one thing is for sure:

the impact of digitalization on work organization, on the relocation of workers, on their productivity and on their training needs – brought about by the new organization of work – is a core issue for our European Project and for its legal foundations.

From this point of view, it is now imperative to include in the concept and practices of employee involvement the plans of transnational groups which involve investments in digitalization thanks to the resources which will be made available through the Recovery Plan.

We are facing something completely new in terms of resources available to fund digital innovation for a sustainable economy. Through the pooling of the debt, public resources of a scale that could hardly be imagined only few months ago will stimulate corporate restructuring processes at the transnational level.

With respect to these restructuring processes and to the identification of the effects on workers of the digital investments made possible by the Recovery Plan, it is now a priority to truly involve workers’ representatives to anticipate change.

The very specific and relevant topic of employee involvement and participation is something we need to discuss in depth in the next weeks and months, together with the trade unions and employers’ associations that are actively participating in this European Project FISAC-CGIL 2019-0016.

I would like to stress one specific element which has already been addressed by European Social Dialogue in the Banking sector and by the most recent Joint Statements issued as a result of Social Dialogue.

I am referring to the increases in work productivity which digitalization has brought about and will bring about. These have been made possible by the job cuts linked to digitalization, but also by the implementation of new procedures and by the physical relocation of individual workers.

There are at least three ways in which, in our opinion, a sizable part of these productivity increases should be invested:

1. limiting job cuts, including the ones due to the pandemic

1. retraining workers who would hardly be redeployed

1. protecting the purchasing power of workers, in particular the ones directly affected by productivity increases

These are three recommendations that we make to trade unions and employers’ associations, as we prepare to work together for the drawing up of joint proposals to the European Commission. To submit them, we can rely on the key support of our allies in the European Parliament, starting from Brando Benifei, with whom we have collaborated fruitfully for a long time.

The impact of the COVID-19 emergency on the timeline, implementation modes and topics of the Project

We had originally agreed with the European Commission for this project to last 20 months, from March 2019 to October 2020. This was in line with the average duration of similar projects with comparable objectives.

The COVID-19 emergency forced us to postpone the fourth and fifth events (the second meeting of the Steering Committee and the Final Conference). The fourth event was postponed from March 2020 – when the emergency was most serious – to October 2020, when we were lucky enough to benefit from the last days before the current lockdown.

The Final Conference was originally scheduled for last June, but it should now take place by the end of February. We still do not know to which extent it will be possible to hold it in person, since we have a potential audience of about 60 people from 16 different countries (at the moment it is currently not possible to travel to Italy from some of them, except under the condition of an impractical quarantine).

I would like to point out that since our latest Plenary, which took place as planned in November 2019, we have certainly had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 emergency. Yet, we have never stopped working. Proof of this is, among other things, that the DG Employment proposed last March that we formally ask for an extension of the Contract which FISAC-CGIL had signed with them. This is what we did, as we postponed the deadline by 5 months, i.e. from 31 October 2020 to 31 March 2021.

At the meeting of 7-8 October not all eight transnational groups participating in the Project were represented. Indeed, it is difficult to maintain continuity of participation for a Project which was submitted to the European Commission on 2 May 2018, which formally started on 1 March 2019, and whose original duration was extended from 20 to 25 months due to the COVID-19 emergency. This means it has been more than two years since the formal start of the Project activities, and almost three years since its submission to the European Commission. Indeed, the time it takes from the submission to the approval and to the payment of the first tranche of funds by the Commission is almost one year.

Based on my experience, I can say that it is really difficult to keep people engaged for such a long time. However, the fact that 5 in 8 groups were formally represented in this meeting was already a success.

This kind of situation was impossible to predict even less than one year ago. But a Project on changes in work and their considerable impact on work organization must necessarily try to understand what effects the COVID-19 emergency has on work organization and the workers of the finance industry. I am not saying that we should deviate from the original purpose of our Project, but that we should briefly integrate this unexpected issue into it.

Let’s first clarify some key points:

remote work is not smart working, it is telework. Let’s be clear. We cannot use the expression “smart working” for someone working from home. Smart working may also include working from home, but the two things should not be confused. Let’s not oversimplify the situation.

Smart working and the changes in work organization addressed in our Project are something much more complex. As our guests will tell us, there is no longer a fixed, specific place where bank workers arrive every morning at a certain time. They no longer have lunch break at a certain time and they no longer go home at a certain time – unless they work overtime.

There is no longer a fixed workplace, nor fixed working hours. Employees now also work from home, but they mostly work wherever they are needed, for instance at the client’s office or somewhere else.

With respect to this difference from telework, in his speech Angelo Di Cristo, Head of UNI Finance, correctly underlined that telework is regulated by a series of existing agreements, among which the ones signed by UNI Finance and by the European employers’ associations of the banking and insurance sectors. With the COVID-19 emergency, there has been a strong acceleration in the spreading of work from home, but collective bargaining is struggling to keep up with this acceleration.

In the final speech of the first day, Claudio Cornelli expressed similar ideas. This concept was also confirmed by the results of the questionnaires filled in by the workers of the 4.0 segment. These results were presented by Roberto Errico and Nicola Cicala in October. The sudden and sweeping changes in work organization brought about by the pandemic have generated a significant increase in work productivity and decrease in “operational” costs. This has convinced even the companies which until February 2020 had most resisted smart working to adopt it.

The trade unions have not been caught unprepared, also at an international level. A good example is the Agreement on the COVID-19 emergency, or, to be more precise, the Joint Statement which was signed in late March 2020 by the social partners of the finance industry in the framework of European Social Dialogue in our sector (see annexes to this Report).

1. However, there is still a lot to negotiate, in particular on two issues:

1. the workers’ right to disconnect at predetermined times and days;

the workers’ right to receive from their employers all the tools, equipment and material needed to work from home, without using the workers’ personal equipment.

With respect to these two rights, I see an indirect yet substantial connection with the experience of Finance Watch mentioned by Claudio Cornelli. To be sustainable and adequately regulated, the finance industry should ensure the protection of savers, the corporate responsibility of financial investments, and the full implementation of workers’ rights and guarantees.

Angelo Di Cristo underlined a peculiar element, something which had already begun to emerge and was further accelerated by the pandemic: the growing superfluity of a significant part of the real estate assets of banks as a side effect of the increasing digitalization and of work from home.

This confirms a concept of Marxist theory which I had already mentioned during one of the first meetings of this European Project back in 2019: the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as a result of the increase in the organic composition of capital. In this regard, I would like to quote an excerpt of my introduction to the Plenary we organized in Belgrade in June 2019:

In my opinion there is an underlying trend to the speed of change, which is pushed by the digitization of the production process of banking and financial services.

To understand this trend, it is helpful to make reference to the old and bearded Karl Marx, who – in this respect and in many others – proves to be more modern than many presumed modern economists and sociologists.

I am thinking about the rapidity of rotation of working capital, i.e. the money out of which banks must be able to make a profit as quickly as possible. At the same time, they also need to dispose of growing shares of fixed capital, fixed assets like facilities, buildings, obsolescent machinery, offices and branches. These fixed assets have an impact on what Marx called the organic composition of capital and they lead to the tendency of the rate of profit (in this case for the bank) to fall.

After all, what is the open, smart branch about? What is the process of divestment and sale of huge real estate assets about? It is just about banks getting rid of costly fixed assets for years, albeit with mixed results.

And, after all, what is digitization about? It is about the possibility of offering banking services with the least possible amount of fixed assets, using working capital and making it rotate more and more quickly.

This whirlwind and radical reorganization of the production cycle in banks is pushed by the need to radically change what Marx called the organic composition of capital and to increase the rate of profit in two ways:

first, the aforementioned drastic reduction in fixed capital, together with the exponential growth of the rapidity of rotation of working capital;

second, the strong increase in work productivity through quality improvement and the readiness of workers to accept different working hours, schedules and targets. This acceptance is then rewarded through increased independence, less hierarchy, more opportunities of professional growth and pay rises.

With this self-quotation I anticipated part of the considerations we made during our latest meeting in October. Another key concept was expressed by Claudio Cornelli and by Angelo Di Cristo: UNI works to export the rights of workers and trade unions to the countries where they are insufficient and where companies have relocated major segments of their production cycles precisely to exploit these insufficiencies.

In fact, employers have sent us a message that seems to agree to a significant extent with our critical approach.

As correctly pointed out by Monica Carta on behalf of the management of the Unicredit Group, the COVID-19 emergency has further accelerated the processes which, in the competitive context and in the world of work, are rapidly redefining roles and responsibilities, probably as never before. This emergency has also led to a rapid reskilling and upskilling in digitalization of large groups of the population. (…) Internalizing change requires time. Employers and trade unions can act through advanced social dialogue to enhance the human capital and in order for workers to actively contribute to the company’s success and to their own professional growth also in the new post-pandemic scenario.

Advanced social dialogue must set itself the goal of qualitatively improving the daily experience of workers and of defining a set of rules to manage change in the interest of workers, of undertakings, and ultimately of society.

This approach is quite in line with what Agostino Megale said in his speech on 7 October. He drew our attention to the co-determination rights in Germany and France. He also explicitly stressed the need to implement at long last art. 46 of the Italian Constitution and to also overcome the age-old reservations of trade unions. Agostino stressed that the economic, healthcare and social conditions of Europe can generate change in this regard.

For this reason, it is necessary to carefully monitor also the forms of work that have become more common during the COVID-19 emergency, such as working from home and smart working. When they were first introduced, the many difficulties led to regulating them. However, we may now find out that the majority of workers see this evolution positively. Now that digital innovation helps us go beyond the traditional concepts of time and space, workers may see this change as a sort of liberation from the constraints of working in an office, bank branch, workplace. However, as we know, every evolution of work can be a liberation only if it does not become a prison. And it becomes a prison when there are no rules. In every European country, in a branch or office, work ends at a certain time. This is what we call “disconnection”: it is a right, but also a duty which must be recognized at a national and at a European level.

Acceleration of change because of the COVID-19 emergency and organizational issues for trade unions

The COVID-19 emergency has certainly accelerated a number of processes and it may have made some of them irreversible.

A definitive change may be the permanent adoption of remote work for at least part of an employee’s working hours. This is something we should think about carefully. On the one hand, remote work ensures more flexibility in the organization of working hours and shifts, and it can help meet some specific needs. On the other hand, I think it is also a major reason for concern for trade unions.

The fact that the workers represented by trade unions are no longer concentrated in a specific, physical place is a major problem for trade unions. In my opinion, unions do not know how to handle this issue and they are trying to do so as best as they can.

In this regard, Agostino said:

Trade unions very often approach innovation with the fear generated by change. Fear is a dominant aspect of modern societies. Very often, it leads to reactionary or right-wing political positions. It is indeed difficult to deal with fear, whereas it is easier to respond with superficial statements that appeal to people’s gut feelings. It is difficult to integrate an immigrant arriving to your country, while it is simpler to use racist slogans that are more easily understandable. But difficulties are the ones that solve problems. Simplifications respond to fears, but without solving them. Regaining a positive idea of politics and union action requires the willingness and courage to address complexity. Every time we are dealing with a complex situation and we have to send a difficult message, we as trade unionists shall behave responsibly, tenaciously, seriously and rigorously, in line with the values that have pushed us to serve other workers and not to pursue our own interests.

These democratic processes strengthen the role of union leaders. We and you are here to serve workers. We should not be afraid of digital innovation. We cannot underestimate it, but we cannot be afraid of it. We must be willing to govern change and be aware that, through our knowledge and through the democratic participation processes existing within undertakings, we can and must do more.

The digital challenge is maybe the most important challenge of the last 30-40 years. Its characteristics are unprecedented. Yet, if we analyze the history of trade unions, we see that labour agreements and industrial relations have evolved in connection with technological changes.

The speed of change: for a permanent collective bargaining, in a different balance between national bargaining and bargaining within transnational groups

Agostino Megale did not join the plethora of people who, faced with the contradictions, lack of discipline, and slowness of European liberal democracies, praised the supposed efficiency of public health management in authoritarian regimes like China (which is, whether we like it or not, where the pandemic started, as unfortunately only right-wing parties remind us).

Agostino emphasized “(...) the extremely close connection between democracy and self-government and the responsible choices of individuals. Constraints can certainly be imposed, but if individuals are engaged to act responsibly and to personally contribute to the protection of their health, democracy wins over any kind of authoritarian rule.

This is essential, because there is no preordained destiny according to which democracy loses and authoritarianism wins. This is also relevant to our discussion in the smaller context of our Project. We are neither thinking about Socialism nor about the self-government of workers. But we certainly want to advance and strengthen democratic processes, for what we may call an evolution of capitalism from the aggressive pursuit of profit to a form of capitalism mitigated by the democracy of workers’ participation.”

Trade unions – in particular union representatives that are most in direct contact with workers – need permanent collective bargaining in order to keep up with the speed of change. During our two-day event in October, this idea helped establish a direct link between Agostino Megale’s speech and the analysis of sociologist Piero Valentini (see annexes to this Report for his complete presentation). Figure 3 of his analysis clearly shows the connection between continuous restructuring and processes of continuous competitive digital innovation, which is also strongly driven by Fintech companies.

In this regard, Agostino pointed out that “(…) in the early Nineties, while discussing the changes of the third industrial revolution, Bruno Trentin, the then Secretary-General of CGIL, mentioned the connection between collective bargaining and the bargaining timeframe. At the time, there were national collective bargaining agreements and group-wide agreements that lasted two or three years, depending on the situations. Back then, we already argued that, in order to regulate changes and work organization, collective bargaining cannot be limited in time. Instead, there should be an almost permanent collective bargaining, because changes and technological production occur on a constant, continuous basis. And I would argue that digital innovation completes in space and time this concept, because, after all, we are dealing with continuous and permanent innovation.”

Levels of bargaining amidst changes in work organization

For this project we involved 8 transnational groups, namely 7 banking groups and 1 insurance group: Intesa Sanpaolo, Unicredit Group, Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Santander, Groupama.

Why did we involve union representatives within companies rather than national trade unions?

Because those who are bargaining within undertakings and managing industrial relations are on the frontline dealing with change and its effects.

Therefore, union representatives within companies and transnational groups must be able to make preliminary assessments and elaborate first responses.

In this regard, I think it is inevitable to ask ourselves how to strike a balance between a national collective bargaining agreement and company-level agreements.

I want to speak openly and invite all of us to reflect on and examine real data and situations.

In order to try to anticipate change, I think it is fair to say that the only way to do it quickly enough is company- or group-level bargaining. This should be combined with and, if necessary, mediated through instruments of co-determination, participation and surveillance of corporate decisions. However, these instruments are not (yet) available in most countries, so I will limit myself to bargaining.

The latter should not be opposed to industry-wide collective bargaining, which plays – and should continue to play – a “universal” (albeit national and not transnational) role. However, we should take into account that a transnational group acts on a larger dimension, taking international financial and labour markets into consideration. Within its limited scope, the national collective bargaining approach of the last decades can hardly respond to these wider challenges.

When I speak of labour markets, I am thinking about workers that are hired or dismissed, salaries that are increased, kept the same or cut, working hours that need to be organized or even reduced. Let’s even assume that working hours must be reduced: in this case, should we keep salaries stable?

In order to keep salaries stable with fewer working hours, it is either necessary to increase productivity, or – to put it plain – someone must provide the money needed to cover the higher labour cost per hour which is inevitably generated by a reduction in working hours.

Who can provide this money?

The State, through general taxation, i.e. by further increasing an already very high tax burden?

Or should it be the European Union, through instruments which would have to be agreed upon and organized together?

We must absolutely find an answer to these questions. Either we increase productivity, or we find a way to fill the salary gap between reduced working hours and full remuneration. If trade unions intend to propose a reduction in working hours, I think they should also come up with an answer to this issue.

Of course, the employment dynamics are different across the various countries.

CGIL (my trade union) has reaffirmed its determination to defend national industry-wide collective bargaining agreements. In my opinion, CGIL and, in general, all Italian trade unions should reflect carefully on this aspect. Fine, let’s defend national agreements. But if the proposal stops here, as a member of CGIL, I must say that I am not fully convinced. Especially if trade unions put forward another huge priority, i.e. a substantial, across-the-board salary increase. How can we reconcile this priority with an equally across-the-board reduction in working hours in the framework of national collective bargaining? Once again and once more, I believe this leads us back to the core, real priority: productivity.

Agostino Megale on national, company- and group-wide collective bargaining

Mario has made some good points concerning the levels of collective bargaining and their effectiveness. However, I believe it is necessary to go more in depth to clarify some aspects.

First, while there are national collective bargaining agreements and group-wide agreements, we cannot ignore the evolution of undertakings at a supranational level. When national agreements are negotiated, the European dimension is ignored. Yet, the European dimension has acquired a major role in the last decades. In the past we already discussed the idea of having European collective agreements. The extent of the single currency does not make it possible to negotiate salaries at the European level. As a result, in the European context we can only discuss the possibility of a mandatory minimum salary or of general guidelines. But, if we go back to the initial idea of European collective agreements, I think that never before has a sector been as centralized at the European level as the banking industry – and in part the insurance industry as well.

During the crises we even talked about bail-ins, bail-outs, and decisions to be taken during the weekend – when markets are closed – which have immediate consequences. This is something that does not happen in the textile, shoe-making or chemical sector. In the banking industry, the European dimension is more decisive than in any other sector.

To deal with this evolution, we cannot envisage a large, European contract, which is only possible in theory and actually impractical. We cannot even deal with it through European Directives and rules. As Angelo Di Cristo, Head of UNI Finance, knows very well, what we need is a strong, very strong European trade union.

Within transnational groups, there is a tendency across countries to underestimate the role of European trade unionism.

Whether we like it or not, our future lies in this dimension more than in the national one. In the future, the real centre of gravity in the world of work will be in the workplaces – hence the direct representative bodies of workers – and in the supranational dimension.

We do not know how long it will take, and the world seems to go back to the pursuit of local interests. But the global economic dimension has helped us understand that the economic and financial power has no boundaries, whereas our boundaries are very often cages that prevent European trade unions from being effective enough. While steps forward have certainly been made, there is still room for improvement. I am thinking about social dialogue, relations with the European Commission, the negotiation with Ursula Von der Leyen – which should be mainly delegated to union federations, but which still leaves a lot of room for action.

If we look at the world of digital evolution, in the future national collective bargaining agreements, albeit within this necessary European framework, are destined to go beyond industry boundaries.

Today, how many financial transactions are made by financial corporations outside our sector?

How many financial transactions are made in post offices?

Suffice it to mention that Intesa Sanpaolo now sells prepaid cards through tobacconists, that companies like Amazon and Google will soon offer much more than simple payment and cash services, but also the possibility of making actual financial transactions.

Well-advised trade unions should start to consider the need for a single collective agreement that encompasses more than one sector. I am not saying this because I am particularly enlightened, but because we have to learn from history and try to understand what may happen, without exaggerating things.

An analysis of the context highlights three aspects:

If we count all the countries in the world where there is a national collective bargaining agreement, we realize that they are only a minority.

If we consider workers who are covered by an agreement and those who are not, in Italy the division is maybe 50-50 (in the banking sector, we should consider producers, who are freelancers). In the insurance sector, 42,000 workers are covered by an agreement and 130,000 are not (producers who are freelancers, covered by a law dating back to 1936).

Digital technologies were already used to promote financial products. During the COVID-19 emergency, we realized that they can also be helpful for trade union meetings, as they make it possible to organize many more meetings than in person. This has a number of positive effects, but it also accelerates processes.

Whether we like it or not, we may also try to defend collective agreements as they are, or as they were. But this is an approach typical of neo-corporatist trade unions, which do not have a plan or project for their future and, as a result, can only try to defend their past achievements.

Instead, the spirit of union federations and of governing change leads us not to give up what we have, but to try to understand what is happening. While it is necessary to safeguard collective agreements, but also expand the role of trade unions, it is essential to reduce simplified contracts from the 800 existing in Italy down to 40. These simplified contracts should encompass several sectors and impose mandatory constraints and rules valid for all affected workers. Wider collective agreements that cover more than one traditional sector necessarily leave more room to group-wide and transnational bargaining. In the Seventies, during the Years of Lead, changes were basically similar for all workers. In the competitive and digital market of today, the effects remain similar, but the evolution of work and of the ways in which workers interact with clients differs.

In the past, classifications in grade were the same for all and rigidly established, and the groups simply applied predetermined roles and responsibilities. Today, the situation has completely changed, so much so that the industrial sector has implemented company-wide bargaining since the Nineties and collective agreements have set some guidelines.

I have made this argument for a while. Even if I have not been successful, history will prove that this is the situation.

What I wanted to tell Mario is that there are no simplifications when it comes to the dynamics of collective agreements and their future. When the president of the Italian industrialists’ association attacked CGIL as if the union was stuck in the Seventies, I proudly replied that in the Seventies, the Secretary-General of CGIL, Luciano Lama, stated that it was silly to believe that the salary was an independent variable that could grow under any circumstances.

In CGIL, even in 1948-49, when Giuseppe Di Vittorio proposed a labour plan, he argued for workers’ responsibility. In order to give a job to all the young unemployed, and for the good of the country, workers would have to be ready to sacrifice part of their salaries.

Left-wing individuals, except for extremists, have never embraced the idea that profit, productivity and salary can be considered independent variables: they are closely related. This is why trade unions are questioning dynamics whereby inflation has been equal to zero for five years.

This is clearly a problem, considering that in Germany productivity has increased by 29% in 17 years, whereas in Italy by only 3%. When we look at the evolution of salaries, in Italy we are basically stuck in the situation we had in 1989, whereas in Germany, thanks to growth, salaries have increased regardless of the existence of collective agreements or collective bargaining.

This should lead us to reflect on the following question: is productivity an enemy of the world of work, or is it a challenge which the world of work poses to businesses?

In my opinion, it is a challenge posed to businesses. When the Bank of Italy lists the parameters for the growth of productivity, it does not include labour. Actually, in one year Italian employees work 350 hours more than German employees and the productivity of labour is generally higher.

This productivity is the result of innovation, investment and digital transformation. It is no chance that Italy’s economy is driven more by cost than by transformation. Of course this does not apply to Unicredit and to the other big groups, but Italy struggles on with its problems. Authoritative trade unions should not be afraid of the attack of the president of the Italian industrialists’ association. In fact, in recent years the world of businesses and capitalism has not been able to make the changes and investments that were needed. And we still have a black economy of 3.5 million people who are paid by employers half of the salaries established in collective agreements.

It is a good point to move forward with our considerations. No one who talks about reducing working hours can expect it to be paid for by a supernatural entity. With a far-sighted approach, working hours could be reduced from the current 36 hours per week established in the collective agreement for banking industry workers. For instance, already in the early 2000s, I argued that textile workers could work for 32 hours per week, including Sunday. Employees could work 8 hours per day, 4 days per week, from Monday to Friday or Thursday, or from Tuesday to Saturday. This new work schedule deserves to be experimented for what I call the fourth capitalism, i.e. the 3-4 million most innovative people. Furthermore, with a rotation mechanism with two rest days, production is increased by 20%, which equates to 600,000 people out of 3 million.

With regard to the payment of the difference between 37.5 working hours per week and 32, considering that each working hour costs 3%, the resulting total of 18% can be covered as follows:

1. one third covered by the necessary increase in productivity;

1. one third covered by the State, which could pay social contributions in the poorer South, or pass a more general reform linking it with reduced working hours;

1. one third covered by something similar to the fund aimed at supporting employment which we invented in 2012 – which remains a unique example in the world.

At the time, the credit spread crisis led us to be creative and invent this measure, which ended up being an effective political tool to promote employment. We certainly cannot expect the reduction in working hours to pay for itself in the long term.

It is not only true, but also fair to say that there is a close connection between salary growth, employment measures and relations with productivity. However, we should not confuse the productivity of labour with technological and systemic productivity. But this is something that we will be able to further examine in the future.

The speed of change: 2) organizing and representing the 4.0 workforce Speed of change is what characterizes the 4.0 era in our sector and it is the challenge ahead of us:

1. speed of change in work organization;

1. speed of change in the workplaces which businesses create for their employees;

1. speed of change in the nature of employment relationships – from typical employees to parasubordinate workers, i.e. formally self-employed but dependent on a single employer for their income (see for instance the Mixed Contract at Intesa Sanpaolo);

1. and speed of change in working hours, with a twofold evolution:

1. Firstly, there is a trend towards a more flexible distribution of working hours over the day, the week and the year. This has led to an extension in the time period between the beginning and the end of work, so much so that Italian trade unions have claimed the workers’ right to disconnect from the tools which employers can use to contact them. Let me make a digression about what I have just said. If we reduce working hours and, at the same time, we distribute them more flexibly over the day or week, I think we can already respond to some of the challenges of reduced working hours in terms of productivity and costs. This is something which Agostino has already mentioned. Being able to work at times and on days (e.g. Saturday) which are traditionally dedicated to social activities may be part of the solution. But I will stop here with my digression.

1. Secondly, flexibility tends to be combined with a sort of self-management of working hours which is functional to the achievement of production and sales targets.

1. The changes brought about by industry 4.0 are causing major employment issues in banks. Jobs that are still concentrated in certain places and in certain sectors of a bank are disappearing. It is true that most of the back office has been outsourced or completely automated. However, it is also necessary to protect senior workers who are more tired and less motivated to stay active. In my opinion, protecting them means accompanying them as they leave the production cycle. This sounds sad to me, but they are often happy to leave.

While we strive to duly protect senior workers, we are also aware that many of the workers that we represent are longing to get rid of us, because they want to leave the production cycle. This is a serious problem.

At the same time, as strongly emphasized by Agostino, we should neither underestimate nor fear digitalization. Digitalization renews part of the workforce, with jobs which combine the characteristics of employees with time management schemes and tasks more typical of self-employment. This new workforce is necessarily more flexible when it comes to working hours and place of work.

The added value of this new workforce is based on specialist professional skills, which can potentially open up important opportunities of career advancement and pay rise.

I stress the term “potentially”, because the study carried out by our research institute ISRF LAB and the analysis of sociologist Piero Valentini (see annexes to this Report) show that these new workers complain about the insufficient salary increases as against the growing demands of employers in terms of productivity and workers’ availability.

The role of trade unions at a national level and, even more so, at a company level is to represent both types of workers: the traditional workforce and the “smart” one of industry 4.0. In other words, trade unions must protect the former because their jobs are no longer essential to reach corporate targets. At the same time, they must be able to represent those who have more bargaining power with the management. The latter also need to be involved in trade unions, in order for their bargaining power not to be limited to the individual sphere and to become a source of collective strength.

If trade unions fail to do so, this new workforce will negotiate directly with the management. This would end up seriously undermining the legitimacy of and communication with trade unions.

The speed of change: 3 - the fitness check of the EU Directives on employee involvement

The other pillar of the Project is something that we have already mentioned:

the fitness check which the European Commission has recently launched to assess the impact and effectiveness of EU Directives on employee involvement.

Among the basic objectives of our Project, a fundamental one is starting a concrete process to introduce new employee involvement and participation procedures. Considering the changes brought about by industry 4.0, the European Commission has launched a fitness check to assess the impact and effectiveness of the EU Directives on employee involvement which have been adopted in the last 40-45 years, since the mid-Seventies.

Our focus is on the agreements which EWCs and European Social Dialogue have promoted so far to implement employee involvement.

In the framework of our Project, we have set ourselves the task of analyzing these agreements, so as to make our contribution to the fitness check.

However, before getting into the details of what we have done so far in the framework of the Project, it is important to make a few points.

1. In recent years, we have listened to professor Filip Dorssemont, the expert who has helped us elaborate our proposals for the analysis of Directives, of their effectiveness, of EWC agreements, and of the transnational agreements promoted by EWCs. Professor Dorssemont has previously pointed out that a crucial point is the lack of a consistent definition of information, consultation and participation across the various Directives on employee involvement. This generates considerable problems for the legal interpretation of the Directives, as well as for their implementation.

1. Interestingly, during our Project, we as promoters, Filip Dorssemont as legal expert, and Jens Thau as President of the EBF Banking Committee for European Social Affairs agreed on this point. An idea for the future would be to involve once again Filip Dorssemont – starting from the 13 proposals he presented at our Plenary in November 2019 – and Jens Thau to draw up together a brief joint statement organized by key points. This document should be based on solid legal grounds to argue for the rewriting and harmonization of the basic definitions.

1. During the meeting we organized in Rome on 7-8 October, the management representatives showed that they were open and ready to revise the Directives, in order to adapt them to the new working conditions and to the speed of change, which has been further accelerated by the COVID-19 emergency.

1. Of course, we have to see whether their preliminary openness will translate into them agreeing to specific proposals. We will also have to involve MEPs like Brando Benifei (and others) to ask for their support.

1. We will have to explore possible alternatives to the formal rewriting of the Directives also after the end of this European Project. We can do so with the European Banking Federation and UNI Finance, which expressed their willingness to collaborate. We imagined with them a joint initiative in 2021, with the goal of adapting the Directives on employee involvement. This joint initiative would hopefully involve also other organizations representing the social partners of sectors other than finance, starting from the ones represented within UNI Europa.

To quote Agostino Megale:

Saying, as we did, that our proposal marks an evolution that strengthens the role of EWCs does not mean that we are suggesting a revolution of the rules. We are simply envisaging the inclusion of few lines in an amendment to the Directive. If there are too many political hurdles, we must be aware that we need to protect the rules and prevent them from going back. With reference to the Recovery Fund, which promotes a digital agenda and digital transformation, and its implementation in concrete projects, we can also envisage an alternative option, without giving up on our goals. Faced with the major changes generated by an investment of more than €1 trillion, we can imagine specific implementation measures that can more easily adapt to the current situation – heavily influenced by digital technologies – without having to change legislation.

Our proposals for the revision of the EU Directives on employee involvement: the 13 proposals and the 4 key points

Under the guidance of and in close collaboration with professor Filip Dorssemont, we have drawn up a document including 13 proposals on what needs to be rewritten. We presented this document in Rome on 13 November 2019, during our latest Plenary.

Later, ISRF-LAB and FISAC-CGIL drew up a very short text with 4 key points, which – as stated by Agostino – highlights that anticipating change is key for social partners to govern it together.

I will now bring up Filip Dorssemont’s 13 proposals. We not only need to examine in detail their implications for the wording of the Directives and their potential effects on industrial relations.

We also need to work with the management representatives who took part in the meeting of 8 October and in the Plenary of 15 November 2019 to reach an agreement on these 13 proposals. To this purpose, we can count on the willingness of Jens Thau and Monica Carta to collaborate in any rewriting of some parts of the EU Directives.

Furthermore, Jens expressed his support for something which I have been saying for years on the basis of Filip Dorssemont’s analyses and which I also repeated during our latest meeting in Rome last October. I am referring to the considerable discrepancies in the basic definitions, starting from the ones of information and consultation, included in the various Directives on employee involvement.

Details aside, the pillar of all the 13 proposals is the elaboration of definitions which eliminate discrepancies in the implementation of the fundamental rights to information and consultation. The goal is to ensure a more certain and consistent implementation of these rights, without any more diverging interpretations.

The other pillar of the 13 proposals is essentially the strengthening of rights and guarantees. This is linked to the first pillar, in the sense that the definitions to be harmonized are also the most relevant and binding. They are indeed necessary to help social dialogue reach concrete agreements, while the separation between consultation and bargaining becomes more flexible.

13 proposals for the revision of the Directives to improve employee involvement

by Prof. Filip Dorssemont – University of Louvain – legal expert for our European Project

1) Generalizing the wording “with a view to reaching an agreement” to the EWC Directive 2002/38 in case of information and consultation concerning proposed decisions which affect the employees’ interests under exceptional circumstances

from:

1. art.4.4.e) of Directive 2002/14 on the information and consultation of employees

1. art.7.2 of Directive 2001/23 on the transfer of undertakings

1. art. 2.1 of Directive 98/59 on collective redundancies

2) Generalizing the wording “The consultation shall be conducted in such a way that the employees’ representatives can meet with the central management and obtain a response, and the reasons for that response, to any opinion they might express (Directive 2002/14 on information and consultation) to the other Directives on employee involvement.

3) In case of restructuring, the Directives on employee involvement must include an obligation to information and consultation, instead of a simple “right” for workers to be informed and consulted.

4) The EU Directives on employee involvement should include corporate strategies and economic policies in the right to information and consultation, and not only their implementation.

5) The wording “information and consultation on decisions likely to lead to substantial changes in work organisation or in contractual relations, including those covered by the Community provisions referred to in Article 9 (1) (Art.4.2.c of Directive 2002/14 establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees) is preferable to the wording “Where there are exceptional circumstances or decisions affecting the employees’ interests to a considerable extent, particularly in the event of relocations, the closure of establishments or undertakings or collective redundancies, the select committee or, where no such committee exists, the European Works Council shall have the right to be informed” (subsidiary requirements of Recast Directive 2009/38).

6) We need to have information and consultation procedures at all levels: -establishment -undertaking -group of undertakings -Community-scale group of undertakings

7) Representatives of Community-level trade unions can serve as experts for the special negotiating body. This provision should be extended to their role as experts in EWCs as well.

8) Granting the right to training for workers’ representatives not only at the EWC level, but also at the establishment or undertaking level.

9) Stating clearly that the costs of this training should be borne by the local and central management. Workers’ representatives should also be left free to choose their training path, provided that they communicate the summary of training activities to the local and central management.

10) Generalizing the role of experts at the local as well as central level.

11) Ensuring that, if there are no workers’ representatives, there is a default scenario not only in the case of transfer of undertaking, but also in the case of collective redundancies. Furthermore, making sure that, if there are no workers’ representatives, a generic system for employee involvement is put in place.

12) In case of collective redundancies, Member States can choose between two different definitions. Ensuring that there is information and consultation in both scenarios or definitions of collective redundancies. Extending the definition of collective redundancies over a period of 90 days to 6 months.

Article 1 – Directive 98/59

1. For the purposes of this Directive:

a) 'collective redundancies' means dismissals effected by an employer for one or more reasons not related to the individual workers concerned where, according to the choice of the Member States, the number of redundancies is:

(i) either, over a period of 30 days:

- at least 10 in establishments normally employing more than 20 and less than 100 workers,

- at least 10% of the number of workers in establishments normally employing at least 100 but less than 300 workers,

- at least 30 in establishments normally employing 300 workers or more,

(ii) or, over a period of 90 days, at least 20, whatever the number of workers normally employed in the establishments in question;

13) Establishing an explicit sanction in case of violation of information and consultation procedures, such as the suspension of the restructuring process.

THE 4 KEY POINTS OF THE FISAC-CGIL PROPOSAL FOR A JOINT DOCUMENT BY SOCIAL PARTNERS

A) The European Works Council must have the right to be informed in advance of the impact which each Business Plan (including any digital innovation processes) of the transnational group will have on workers.

B) Information must be provided in particular on the potential quantitative and qualitative effects on jobs, work organization, smart working, working hours, including the changes deriving from the digital innovation of processes and products.

C) Information must be provided once the draft Business Plan has been drawn up, but well before it is officially made public, without prejudice to confidentiality clauses namely for the information potentially impacting on markets, notwithstanding the employees’ reps duties of communication.

D) This kind of procedure should allow European Works Councils to be consulted in good time on the impact of Business Plans and process innovations. It must also allow them to draw up a Social Plan to govern changes that may affect workers and generate redundancies. For instance, in this case the priority could be given to voluntary redundancies and measures could be taken to retrain and reinstate the affected workers.

We have not yet tried to combine together our 4 key points with professor Dorssemont’s 13 proposals. This is something that we need to do in view of our final meeting scheduled on 24-25-26 February.

In my opinion, the analysis of the two documents shows that Dorssemont’s points 1 to 6 and point 12 are related to our 4 key points.

More precisely, I propose the following scheme:

Key point A) = Points 3), 4), 5), 6)

Key point B) = Points 1), 5)

Key point C) = Points 4), 5), 6)

Key point D) = Points 1), 2), 4), 5), 12)

On the basis of this scheme, point 5) of Dorssemont’s Proposal can provide the necessary legal basis for all 4 of our key points

5) The wording “information and consultation on decisions likely to lead to substantial changes in work organisation or in contractual relations, including those covered by the Community provisions referred to in Article 9(1) (Art.4.2.c of Directive 2002/14 establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees) is preferable to the wording “Where there are exceptional circumstances or decisions affecting the employees’ interests to a considerable extent, particularly in the event of relocations, the closure of establishments or undertakings or collective redundancies, the select committee or, where no such committee exists, the European Works Council shall have the right to be informed” (subsidiary requirements of Recast Directive 2009/38).

Point 4) of Dorssemont’s Proposal can provide the necessary legal basis for at least 3 of our 4 key points, i.e. A), C) and D)

4) The EU Directives on employee involvement should include corporate strategies and economic policies in the right to information and consultation, and not only their implementation.

Dorssemont’s point 1) can provide the necessary legal basis for at least 2 of our 4 key points, i.e. B) and D)

1) Generalizing the wording “with a view to reaching an agreement” to the EWC Directive 2002/38 in case of information and consultation concerning proposed decisions which affect the employees’ interests under exceptional circumstances.

Also Dorssemont’s point 6) can provide the necessary legal basis for at least 2 of our 4 key points, i.e. A) and C)

6) We need to have information and consultation procedures at all levels: -establishment -undertaking -group of undertakings -Community-scale group of undertakings

Finally, Dorssemont’s point 3) provides the legal basis for our key point A)

3) In case of restructuring, the Directives on employee involvement must include an obligation to information and consultation, instead of a simple “right” for workers to be informed and consulted.

And point 12) provides the legal basis for our key point D)

In case of collective redundancies, Member States can choose between two different definitions. Ensuring that there is information and consultation in both scenarios or definitions of collective redundancies.

Extending the definition of collective redundancies over a period of 90 days to 6 months.

The following points in Dorssemont’s Proposal are not directly related to our key points:

7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13. Points 7 to 11 concern the prerogatives and roles of those who take part in EWCs as workers’ representatives or trade union experts. Point 13 concerns the sanctioning regime for failures by the management of a transnational group to provide information and to implement consultation procedures. Unsurprisingly, the management representatives who participated in our previous meetings criticized and distanced themselves from the proposal in point 13.

I now deem it useful to quote another excerpt from Agostino Megale’s presentation, who connected the political dimension with the legal one of our key points and Filip Dorssemont’s 13 proposals:

We can fight against populism by building a stronger democracy and by promoting an idea of change and evolution through our Project. We know that undertakings and large groups have to make business plans and that, in the next few years, these business plans will inevitably include major investments in digital innovation and – I would add – in sustainable development. We need to have a clear understanding of the impact which these factors have on labour, in terms of number of jobs, occupational mobility and professional changes. Some jobs disappear, while new ones are created. According to a US study, out of the 50% of professions that are lost, 20-25% have already disappeared. But out of the 50% of new professions that are created, only some of them already exist, while others will appear in the next few years.

Today, these impacts are limited when a business plan is drawn up and approved by a board of directors, presented to the markets, and then discussed and negotiated wherever there are contract provisions like the ones existing in Europe (for instance, this is not the case in the United States and in Asian countries). In this framework, our proposal consists in an innovative and proactive modification of the relevant Directive, whereby European Works Councils would have an additional right before the launch of a business plan. This is why we say that information should be given in advance, in good time to be able to assess the impact of digital innovation on work. This is what we call advance information procedures in transnational groups. We have said that this information should not be generic and focus on five main points: quality of work; working hours; professional changes; smart working and working from home; innovation in processes, products and working conditions – nothing too generic. This information should be provided in advance – 60, 40 days in advance, or in any case in good time to assess the impact which the information will have also within the works council. This information should obviously be kept confidential until it is officially made public to the markets. The confidentiality clause should not only apply to transnational groups, but also to any workers’ representatives in general – even if we are now used to it. Many times, we are even more responsible than the members of boards of directors, who, because of internal strife, sometimes leak information to the press. This procedure, whereby management informs workers’ representatives of a business plan in good time, makes it possible to include in it what we may call the Social plan for corporate jobs.

This is a reference to the evolution of industrial and corporate democracy of the late Nineties, when we envisaged the creation of a social plan for large Italian undertakings in Europe in parallel with the adoption of the EWC Directive in 1994.

(...) The whole development of EWCs is based on this condition, which remains valid to date. When we imagine these amendments and modifications to the Directive, we do so to reinforce democracy and participation at the global and European level, in order for them to become an essential – and not just secondary – element of the evolution of democratic systems across Europe.

This element of our Project is part of a wider dynamic which, after the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union at the Nice Council, should lead to the evolution of the concept of consistent minimum rights across Europe. For instance, the rights of participation existing in Germany, France and other countries could serve as an example for future common rules on the presence of employees’ representatives in supervisory boards and for the full implementation of roles and responsibilities established in national Constitutions – like in art. 46 of the Italian Constitution.

The reference to art. 46 of the Italian Constitution (see below) is in line with our reformist approach and consistent with the basic objectives of our European Project. Despite some limits and contradictions, the most advanced and consolidated experiences of employee participation made in some European countries remain a crucial source of inspiration.

For the purposes of economic and social betterment of workers and consistently with the requirements of production, the Republic shall recognise the rights of workers to collaborate in the management of enterprises, in the forms and within the limits established by law.

After making all the necessary, possible and appropriate steps to contribute to the fitness check, the goal we now set ourselves can be summarized in this excerpt from Agostino Megale’s speeches in Rome last October:

“(...) The best way to do so is a revision of the Directives. However, we can achieve our objective also in an alternative, yet equally effective way.”

Overview of developments within the EWCs and within the Intesa Sanpaolo Group

The EWC of the Unicredit Group was represented by Goffredo Molteni, member of the Secretariat of the Central Coordination Unit for FISAC-CGIL and member of the EWC Select Committee.

He strongly emphasized the need for the Select Committee to receive information in good time in order for consultation to be possible.

To quote Goffredo:

“I will be very honest. As members of the EWC Select Committee, we receive information on the business plan before the markets. However, this information is provided to us at 7:30 a.m. of the day in which the business plan is officially made public. The Select Committee is composed of nine members from both Western and Eastern Europe and we have traditionally been very united in our relations with the management. However, in these cases our possibilities of interaction with the management are clearly very limited because of the very short notice. In other words, we are granted the right to information, but not really the right to consultation, considering that we are faced with a series of elaborate data, future scenarios and a complex, composite and difficult business plan. Indeed, ours is a pan-European bank which covers 16 countries, ranging from mature markets (Italy, Germany and Austria) to Central and Eastern European countries with completely different economic and social characteristics.”

This explanation mostly referred to major restructuring processes involving up to 8,000 redundancies and with a time lag between the cutting of jobs and the actual implementation of digitalization. Hence, these processes involved a complex transition phase in work organization which had a major impact on the affected employees.

On the other hand, Goffredo emphasized not only the limits, but also the achievements of his EWC, namely the fact of having significantly reduced the final number of collective redundancies in comparison with the initial plans of the parent company.

During the COVID-19 emergency, the group accelerated information and consultation procedures by convening the Select Committee every two weeks. The parties are also working to turn the EWC Statement on work from home into a Joint Declaration.

Goffredo welcomed enthusiastically our proposal for an advance information procedure for the elaboration of a Social Plan together with the Business Plan. He agreed that information should be provided in good time and that plans should be made to hire new workers and to implement effective training programmes to prevent, at least in part, collective redundancies and to support dismissed workers.

Marcello Carcereri, member of the EWC of Santander, replaced in this meeting Ana Herranz, representative of the trade union Servicios-CcOo in the parent company.

We know very well the long-standing limits of this EWC. It only meets once a year, no information is provided because of the lack of basic communication tools (intranet page), and top management representatives hardly ever participate in the annual meeting. We have received many reports of these issues. However, I think that, without a joint action plan agreed upon by the EWC representatives from Spain (who are the only ones to have significant industrial relations with the parent company) and UNI Finance, these problems will persist, making the role of the EWC in this transnational group of almost 100,000 employees even more marginal. Even the constituent agreement of this EWC fails to meet the requirements established by Directive 2009/38. Only the collaboration between the EWC representatives from Spain and UNI Finance can lead to its renegotiation.

Similarly to other groups, the COVID-19 emergency has led the Santander group to adopt remote work. In Spain, the most vulnerable workers have been protected thanks to the measures taken by the central government (however, 700 branches were closed during the first lockdown, 400 of which will probably never reopen). In the United Kingdom, there has been an agreement on demotions which guarantees the payment of salary differences for 24 months.

The COVID-19 emergency has also had a major impact on the consumer credit market. To deal with it, Santander Consumers (where Marcello is a company-level representative of FISAC-CGIL) has signed an agreement which combines remote work and 6-hour shifts for 6 days with the goal of preserving the 650 jobs of the group in Italy.

Franco Cappellini, on behalf of the EWC Select Committee of Crédit Agricole, underlined two key points on information and consultation:

1) the Select Committee receives information promptly, so that it can effectively monitor the business plan, the annual accounts of the group and all the management’s new proposals;

2) consultation is effective, also thanks to the constituent agreement of the EWC, which establishes that organizational changes with a transnational impact must be presented to the EWC in good time to allow the EWC to express its opinion.

Franco also stressed another two elements. Firstly, the Global Agreement (C.A. is one of the largest banking groups in the world) extends a number of basic rights to all the workers of the transnational group. Secondly, the new website of the EWC was made more user-friendly during the COVID-19 emergency.

However, it is useful to quote an important excerpt of Franco’s speech, which confirms the separation between the traditional workforce made up of “mass workers” and the new 4.0 workforce segment:

As Agostino and Mario said, a divide is emerging between the branches which keep on working with traditional instruments – which due to COVID-19 have reduced their workload by 50% – and the central departments, like marketing and all the new emerging professions, e.g. IT and digitalization. There are now huge differences in the working hours, workload and targets.

The new roles are almost entirely occupied by young people working in marketing and digital technologies (some legacy systems are still used in the IT department and digitalization has yet to be completed).

But all the new tasks are performed by younger engineers. These young people no longer see trade unions as a form of protection, because they are used to working and speaking directly with the central department. As a result, they believe that the idea of trade unions is outdated. In all of these new emerging jobs, colleagues see opportunities to stand out and do new things.

There is a growing divide. On the one hand, there are the traditional branches which, like in all banking groups, are being reduced in number and size. On the other hand, there are the central departments which are becoming aware that local resources can be used more efficiently. COVID-19 has helped them understand that people can work from home also in Southern regions. It is enough to make it an objective, but unfortunately there are not yet any rules to protect the rights of individuals.

Many are advocating for the right to disconnect, which we included in the Global Agreement and which should therefore be applied across the entire group. This is a really important right. I can personally confirm it, as I have been working from home almost from the first day.

You no longer work early in the morning, because you actually start to work at 10-10:30 a.m. But then you work until 10 p.m. Clients are at home, specialists like me as well, and the central department completes transactions, marketing and other activities towards the evening.

Therefore, without rules, there is this mess, this confusion among colleagues.

On behalf of the Secretariat of the Central Coordination Unit for FISAC-CGIL in Intesa Sanpaolo, Elena Cherubini strongly emphasized that the largest banking group in Italy – and one of the most important ones in Europe – has yet to create a EWC. The international dimension of Intesa Sanpaolo has even grown bigger since the merger by incorporation of the UBI group. Now the employees working outside Italy amount to 40% of the total workforce. They are mostly concentrated in the new EU Member States and candidate countries, as well as in the Bank of Alexandria in Egypt (with 80% of its shares now controlled by Intesa Sanpaolo).

The creation of a EWC has become even more urgent in light of the COVID-19 emergency, which has further accelerated changes in work organization. (…) It would have been important to exchange information on the health and safety measures adopted by our bank across Europe. We might have introduced best practices from the grassroots level upwards. While governments may fail to introduce health and safety measures promptly and effectively, maybe best practices implemented at grassroots level in undertakings can be successful. It would have been important, but we will continue to work hard for the creation of a EWC. I think that the participation of management in our November event was an important factor. Indeed, we have to start by meeting each other and establishing human relations. I think that was the first time that our colleagues from the banks of other countries saw the faces of their Italian management.

So let’s build on what we have to continue to work in this direction. Mario mentioned the creation of the Trade Union Alliance, which helped us to formally request the setting up of the EWC.

Elena underlined a fundamental element for this session of the Project when she stated:

(…) We are here also to talk about employee involvement, and it is very important to have some of them participating in this session. However, I would like to conclude by saying that employee involvement requires a certain approach by us, as trade unionists. Trade unions must be culturally prepared to be ready to enlarge the number of workers they represent and involve.

The traditional tools used by trade unions, like in-person meetings, demonstrations and even strikes, are now challenged by the situation. But we must be the first to believe that new forms of action are possible, which we have to find, invent and communicate to workers. As the other speakers have shown, workers need supranational dialogue, simply because they all have the same problems.

We have to look at internationalization and digitalization as challenges that can help us feel better and overcome the fear of change.

With respect to work from home, Elena stressed the need to revise the company-level agreement on the topic, which predated the COVID-19 emergency: (…) We need an agreement which makes reference to national industry-wide standards or laws, and which increases the number of days of work from home to 10 per month, in line with the national industry-wide agreement. Considering the fixed costs of working from home, the lack of meal vouchers (not distributed in this case) and of an ergonomic workspace, we must find regulatory and remuneration guarantees.

Mariarosaria Mazzotta also talked about the situation and current changes in the Intesa Sanpaolo group. In particular, she talked about the so-called Mixed Contract which was agreed upon by the social partners to regulate workforce segments that are a perfect example of the changes brought about by industry 4.0. We have also often referred to them: young workers whose workweek is regulated for two days in five by the ordinary contract that generally applies to the Intesa Sanpaolo employees, and by a freelance contract for the remaining three days.

The Intesa Sanpaolo employee who participated in our Meeting, is a typical example of this 4.0 workforce segment: highly qualified and specialized, his working conditions are regulated by the so-called Mixed Contract.

Below is the transcription of Mariarosaria’s speech, including the questions posed to her by sociologist Piero Valentini:

Mariarosaria Mazzotta – Coordination Unit FISAC-CGIL in Intesa Sanpaolo

I am a company-level union representative (editor’s note: hence the union representative most directly in contact with the workforce) and I am a Coordinator in the Intesa Sanpaolo group. I am here to talk about transformations in the Intesa Sanpaolo group and about what we call the Mixed Contract. My colleague Gerardo Carrara next to me works under this kind of contract, which is the result of a new way of organizing work.

We know very well that banks all have different organizational systems, something which was not the case in the past. They also have different business channels.

How did we get to the Mixed Contract?

In Intesa Sanpaolo, we started from a project concerning employees focusing on investments. Some of them were asked to work offsite and to register as Financial Promoters, even if they remained full-time employees of the bank with an open-ended contract. So the only difference was that they were used to meeting clients outside their workplaces.

This initial experiment was not very successful. On the one hand, other trade unions tried to discourage people. On the other hand, the colleagues who passed the exam as financial promoters actually never wanted to perform their job outside their workplaces.

In the meantime, digitalization was making huge steps forward, so we came to the offers made at a distance.

(Piero Valentini) When did that happen? More or less? When was it?

(Mariarosaria) The initial experiments I told you about took place in 2015. In the last two years, Intesa Sanpaolo has tried to meet clients’ needs in a new way, through transactions offered at a distance. These offers were made also by employees working in the branches. This turned out to be useful when COVID-19 struck, because in this area we were already prepared.

In 2017, with the major bank crises, Intesa opted for something new, i.e. what we call workers with a Mixed Contract. However, this instrument was mainly used for financial promoters of other banks in order to have new assets under management.

So there was this new possibility. On 1 February 2017, when the relevant agreement was signed, this initiative was still considered “experimental”. Basically, financial promoters of other banks were offered the possibility of a stable job. For two days per week they would work as part-time employees with an open-ended contract, while for the remaining three days they would work as financial promoters, bringing their customer base to Intesa Sanpaolo.

In this experimental phase, internal employees also had the opportunity to request the switch to a Mixed Contract.

How? They would work part-time as employees and part-time as freelancers. After 24 months, they would go back to being full-time employees, unless they explicitly requested to continue with the Mixed Contract also after the initial 24 months.

The experiment with financial promoters was not very successful, because those who approached Intesa Sanpaolo did not manage many clients nor large asset portfolios.

The workers who accepted had very low annual incomes, around €15,000. We offered them a net income of €900 per month as employees. In addition, they would continue to do what they already did, i.e. manage asset portfolios as freelancers.

So after a while, the bank slowed down the hiring of financial promoters, limited the number of eligible workers and finally stopped this procedure for promoters.

In the meantime, Intesa Sanpaolo had acquired the banks based in Veneto.

(Piero Valentini) What were the main issues and opportunities of this experimental initiative?

(Mariarosaria) I will give you some useful information to assess the effectiveness of the Mixed Contract.

These people work as part-time employees for 40% of the week, receiving a net monthly salary of about €900. For the remaining 60% of the week, in the first six months the company guarantees a minimum gross income of €1,354, i.e. a net monthly income of about €1,000-1,100. During the lockdown period, we were able to extend the guaranteed minimum income to 12 months for those who had been hired at the end of 2019.

As a result, workers with a Mixed Contract earn a part-time salary plus a guaranteed minimum income for the first six months, for a total net monthly remuneration of about €2,000.

Why did it not work? More precisely, why was the growth of this category of workers below expectations? Because promoters’ mentality has much more to do with freelancers than with employees, who must comply with several constraints and rules. On the other hand, employees benefit from the guarantees established in all the industry-wide and national agreements implemented by Intesa Sanpaolo: complete health care coverage, supplementary social security scheme, and all the other rights and bonuses we have as employees.

The promoters who were hired with a Mixed Contract received a number of benefits: a part-time salary plus all the additional welfare bonuses. Furthermore, they kept on working as freelancers, bringing their asset portfolios to Intesa Sanpaolo.

The group had initially planned to hire 400 or more promoters in this way. However, after a while it stopped because of the issues I have just mentioned.

(Piero Valentini) Sorry for interrupting you, but we have a very tight agenda. It is very important that you stressed the need for more information, but we could also examine this issue more in depth separately.

(Mariarosaria) Let’s now get to the near past and to the present of the Mixed Contract. Young graduates are selected on the basis of their relational skills. They are hired for a paid internship – as established by the Regions – which serves as a training course in preparation for the exam to become financial promoters.

Once they pass the exam for financial promoters, they are hired according to the scheme I have just described. For two days per week (equal to 40% of working hours) they work as part-time employees, while for the remaining three days they work as freelancers, with a guaranteed minimum income for the first six months, for a total monthly remuneration of about €2,000. In addition, the bank assigns some existing clients to them and undertakes to pay commissions for any new clients they acquire.

Let’s now talk about the critical aspects.

The most important one is the insufficient training for the two days in which they work as employees. Being recent graduates, they have to learn everything about working in a bank. They have a university degree and they have extensive knowledge of financial matters, but they have no work experience in the real context. On the one hand, the digitalization processes certainly lead them to work with clients in a different way. On the other hand, they need training both for the two days per week in which they work as employees in the branches and for the three days in which they represent the bank as freelancers. They are formally self-employed, but dependent on a single employer for their income. Hence, they need well-structured, complex and timely training. This is a very important issue: we have made major steps forward at the contract level, but we still have a lot to do.

Silvia Romano, Deputy Secretary of the EWC of BNP-Paribas, joined us by video from Madrid because she was not able to get to Rome due to the travel restrictions.

She confirmed us that there are some persistent issues in industrial relations with the parent company. More precisely, there are some contradictory attitudes that have a negative impact on the functioning of the EWC. For instance, the central management initially refused to sign a European agreement on telework. However, during the latest virtual meeting of the Select Committee – extended to countries that are not represented in it – the management changed attitude. To quote Silvia, (…) the plenary with 50 members who represent the 23 countries in which BNP operates was replaced by a meeting of the Select Committee, the heads of the HR Department and some European experts.

During this mini-plenary we once again asked for a European agreement on telework. This time, the heads of the HR Department accepted the idea. We have already started to assess all possibilities in the various countries to collect all the available data. We will certainly keep you informed.

Silvia also confirmed that the trade unions are faced with the challenges posed by the extensive and radical organizational changes caused by the COVID-19 emergency. This transformation is questioning the effectiveness of the traditional and well-tested instruments used by union representatives, who must continue to be the most direct and immediate contact persons for workers.

Finally, Silvia stressed once again the existence of a problem which she had also highlighted during the project we carried out from 2015 to 2017: the less and less sustainable imbalance between the advanced and dynamic industrial relations existing in the group and in the EWC and a EWC Agreement that is still based on the old article 13 of Directive 94/45. It is a political issue that must be overcome with the political determination of the EWC, with the support of UNI Finance. We should also bear in mind that, from a regulatory and legal point of view, those EWC agreements now lack a legal basis. On the one hand, the transnational group has changed in size. On the other hand, these old agreements can no longer exist, because the transitional period established by Directive 2009/38 ended some time ago.

The experiences of two workers representative of industry 4.0 change and of their direct trade union representatives

Our survey involved about 30 workers representative of this strategic segment of the new banking workforce. The results of the questionnaire were analyzed by our research institute LAB together with sociologist Piero Valentini. In the annexes you will find the complete transcription of their presentation during our meeting of 7-8 October.

We also listened to the stories of an employee from Santander Consumers and one from Intesa Sanpaolo. They told us about their work experiences and contexts. They gave us a general overview, as well as their personal point of view. They have two skills which are different but equally emblematic of the professional roles that are emerging in the changing scenario. So their stories are a perfect match for the indications and expectations we had set ourselves when we laid down the objectives of the Project.

The complete transcriptions of their speeches are included in the annexes to this Report. This is probably the easiest way to demonstrate the validity of the basic assumptions which we had made already during the presentation of our project in April 2018:

1. This segment of the workforce is strategic, because it is highly skilled in sectors like IT governance and the sale of financial products which are decisive to generate added value in the credit production process.

2. These workers are dynamic and strongly motivated. They find their jobs engaging because they require their know-how and because, in the organization of the entire production cycle of the bank, they have a good degree of autonomy in organizing their working hours and productivity. This condition is almost antithetical to the one of “mass workers”, who are the ones most heavily affected by restructuring processes.

3. The most critical aspect in their condition is the contradiction between their strategic role in the production cycle – which leads them to be strongly motivated and to have certain salary expectations – and the classic/Marxian “exploitation” of their living labour (their expectations are not entirely met) and insufficient response to their training needs.

4. However, this issue does not potentially unite these employees to make joint salary demands. As I have already stated, the individual and corporate situations are very diverse, both in terms of current salaries and of concrete prospects of pay rise and professional advancement. For instance, in the case of Intesa Sanpaolo’s “Mixed Contract”, the 24-month deadline to decide whether to permanently confirm this kind of contract or to turn it into a full-time employment contract may not be enough to make a final decision on the basis of the experience accumulated in the 24 months.

5. These employees ask for the traditional help of trade unions for things like understanding their payrolls and the right to disconnect, i.e. the right to working hours typical of this workforce segment.

6. Trade unions are willing to and aware of the need to respond to the demands of these workers. However, they encounter some difficulties related to these workers’ organization of space and time. Furthermore, union representatives require training on how to best meet the demands of these employees and how to turn them into an organized movement.

Point 6) concerns a fundamental element of the Project, i.e. the training needs of union representatives. After the stories of those two employees, and after the speech by Franco Cappellini (see above), we asked the question directly to Goffredo Molteni and Mariarosaria Mazzotta.

Through our Project, we maintain that training is required for the union representatives who have to represent also this kind of workers. We should not take it for granted that union representatives inside a company or production unit have this kind of professional skills, considering the cognitive, informational and work tools they have been provided by trade unions’ training.

It is difficult to engage the 4.0 workforce segment, especially if they have no physical workplace. Company-level union representatives must often find ways to engage these employees and keep them engaged as union members.

They will not remain members if we cannot respond to their needs, or if they consider our responses inadequate for any kind of reason.

Together with Piero Valentini, I asked Goffredo Molteni and Mariarosaria Mazzotta, who represent this new kind of workers, the following question:

Do you think that union representatives require training to be able to represent these workers and their needs in the framework of more general union policies? What are the conditions necessary to engage these workers and to adjust the work of union representatives to the new characteristics of these workers?

So the question is about both organizational conditions and training.

If this is a problem, how can we face it and solve it?

Below are some excerpts from the long answer provided by Goffredo Molteni and the complete reply of Mariarosaria Mazzotta.

Goffredo Molteni:

My immediate answer is yes. Union representatives do need training to engage, understand and respond to new-generation workers, who, on average, are very young. They are the ones who provide remote help, work online, and reply to your phone calls when you need help with bank transfers and other bank issues, but also investment advice.

After the initial period in which they have to settle in, these workers strongly need the help of trade unions. Often times, their initial remuneration is quite low and they work hundreds of kilometres away from their place of abode or of birth. So they have a number of needs which fall within the scope of traditional trade union activities: understanding the payroll, respect of work shifts, payment of benefits, respect of the breaks they are entitled to in a digitalized service that is very similar to call centres. Actually, if I use this term, the management immediately stops me, because they are not call centres, but consultancy centres. However, they make use of electronic systems which record the worker’s status and control their activities.

Workers are very sensitive to these issues and we need to understand and respond to their needs. We must be well prepared to understand how to best interact with these workers and meet their demands. These are needs which, after all, are part of the traditional activities of trade unions: payrolls, breaks, benefits, controls.

These new workers demand guarantees and respect for their professional growth opportunities. We must work to understand and help them understand the whole of the banking sector and explain them the prospects of professional development, growth and transfer.

There is also another fundamental element.

Why do we need to invest in the internal human capital by providing continuous training in information technologies – both for senior and junior workers?

Because for junior employees there is a major risk. What do they demand?

They demand to be trained and kept up-to-date. They join the bank with certain IT skills and they no longer have the concept of bank which I had, or which people who began to work 20 years later than me have. Young workers want to receive training. In fact, there is a huge turnover problem. These young people are telling us:

“But when I did my job interview, it sounded like I would design skyrockets and now I am here, still using Excel sheets. I did a 6-month internship at Microsoft in the United States and after six months here my CV has actually gotten worse.”

This is a major challenge. How can we face it?

We must voice their demands and challenge the management to provide training in-house or to purchase it externally. Today the situation is quite imbalanced. We need to provide continuous and certified training both to workers aged 35 to 55 and to young employees. We are losing young talents, so we need continuous and certified training to respond to their needs and provide them with useful tools and skills.

Mariarosaria Mazzotta

Many of the young workers we represent at FISAC-CGIL have become members of our union without even knowing me. We have never met, but we regularly speak on the phone and exchange information through digital tools. They feel the need of trade unions, because they have no idea of how the bank works: they know nothing about our classification in grade, our work organization and the rights they have. No one tells them anything. The management does not give them any information, so they come to us to receive it.

When we manage to give them useful indications, young workers are well organized through WhatsApp groups and quickly spread the information around. If you tell something to one of them, many others will receive that information and they will look for our help. So we must be able to represent them and find a way to engage them in a new way, because maybe we are used to our old lifestyle.

Personally, I have worked in a bank for 30 years. When I joined the industry, the world was different, everything was different and now everything has changed. Every worker does something different. There are now the ones using technological tools, the ones working online, the ones with a Mixed Contract, and everything else which may follow – because I am pretty sure that in the future there will be other innovations.

So we must find a different way to be closer to them, speak their language and use their instruments.

I have interacted with several new members from various central and southern regions of Italy (Apulia, Calabria, Sicily, Latium), some of whom now live in the north (Liguria, Lombardy). I have never personally met them, but I have always been regularly in touch with them. Unfortunately we speak of the right to disconnect, but we never disconnect from our cell phones, not even on Saturday or Sunday. But we must try to find new models to represent this new generation of workers. This is something imperative we need to do now.

The stories we heard on 7 October 2020 and the analysis of the questionnaires filled out by a sample of workers of the 4.0 segment

A more in-depth analysis will be made by our friends from the research institute ISRF-LAB. I will only underline a series of aspects which emerged in Roberto Errico’s speeches and which confirm the basic assumptions we made in 2018 when we presented this European Project (see chapter: The speed of change: 2) organizing and representing 4.0 workforce)

However, the results of the questionnaires highlight a number of issues which we can summarize as follows:

The increasing workload does not correspond to a proportional increase in productivity. Indeed, a significant part of the workload increase is due to corporate shortcomings, inefficiencies and delays in the implementation of digital procedures. The speed of innovation brings corporate problems to light and the workers affected by change have to bear the burden of it. As a result, they complain about the insufficient training provided by the company, both in quantitative and in qualitative terms.

The larger responsibilities and more advanced professional skills required to workers by the 4.0 industry does not translate into an adequate pay rise. In this regard, the action of trade unions is made more difficult by the large variety of professions and individual situations existing in this workforce segment that joins the production cycle. I have already asked our friends of the research institute LAB to carry out an additional analysis next January. We must assess to which extent this is due to resistance by management (which we can counter with specific demands) and to which extent this may be due to market dynamics that keep salary levels as they are.

Our dialogue with management representatives

The last part of our session on Thursday, 8 October was dedicated to the exchange of views with Jens Thau, President of the EBF Banking Committee for European Social Affairs, Giancarlo Ferrara, Head of Social Affairs for the Italian Banking Association (ABI), and Monica Carta, Head of International Social Dialogue for the Unicredit Group.

The full transcriptions of their speeches are available in the annexes to this Report. Here I would like to list the 7 points which Monica Carta drew up in preparation for our meeting in Rome on 7-8 October. They are all very interesting, but point 6 is entirely in bold, because I think it is an important requirement to elaborate a joint proposal with our social partners, starting from professor Dorssemont’s 13 proposals and our 4 key points.

1. Innovations in society, in the competitive context and in the world of work are quickly redefining roles and responsibilities, probably as never before. This process has been further accelerated by the COVID-19 emergency. This emergency has also led to a rapid reskilling and upskilling in digitalization of large groups of the population.

2. Occupational mobility: we are now faced with a “hybrid environment”, in which the old model has disappeared and many workers can now contribute to corporate performance anywhere they are, regardless of them being in an office. We have rediscovered the value of processes and activities.

3. Considering the entity of new challenges, we must continue to promote inclusion. No one should be left behind in this challenge, independently from their age, cultural and professional background, and individual peculiarities.

4. Internalizing change requires time. Employers and trade unions can act through advanced social dialogue to enhance the human capital and in order for workers to actively contribute to the company’s success and to their own professional growth also in the new post-pandemic scenario.

5. Advanced social dialogue must set itself the goal of qualitatively improving the daily experience of workers and of defining a set of rules to manage change in the interest of workers, of undertakings, and ultimately of society.

6. EU Directives on employee involvement must take recent changes into account. Therefore, it is necessary to update the current regulatory framework to ensure that social dialogue keeps playing its crucial role in all EU Member States.

7. Thanks to digital technologies, the EWC of Unicredit has always maintained dialogue during the months of the pandemic. We have kept on exchanging views on the most important topics for our colleagues, above all remote work.

Jens Thau agreed with Monica Carta’s point 6) when he addressed a crucial issue which I raised during the meeting and which we repeatedly stressed in recent years (thanks to Filip Dorssemont, who first raised it at the time of the recasting of EWC Directive 94/45, which led to the adoption of EWC Directive 2009/38): the lack of consistency in the definitions of Information and Consultation, as well as in the procedures and objectives of Information and Consultation between the various EU Directives on employee involvement. Some years ago, the European Commission launched a fitness check of these Directives and our European Project intends to make an original and independent contribution to it.

Jens Thau and Giancarlo Ferrara both insisted that the stakeholders of European Social Dialogue should be able to choose the procedures, timeframe and objectives of dialogue independently. In our case, the stakeholders are UNI Finance, with its affiliated national trade unions, and the European employers’ federations – three in the banking sector and three in the insurance sector. This certainly does not mean that we should work without the European Commission or other institutions. It means that we should agree on joint procedures and objectives in order to achieve the results which the speed of change imposes on social partners if they want to continue to play a significant role.

Angelo Di Cristo confirmed that European Social Dialogue in the finance industry is in a very good condition – a joint achievement of the social partners. He said it without being rhetorical, and he underlined that social dialogue is very efficient thanks to the independence of stakeholders. In this regard, he referred to the Joint Statement on Telework and suggested that we could build on it to reach an agreement on a Joint Statement on Work from Home.

Future prospects and credits

We agreed with Angelo Di Cristo and Jens Thau to work together on joint proposals for the rewriting of the most critical aspects of the Directives on employee involvement, starting from Directive 2009/38. The goal would be to involve also other sectors represented by UNI to elaborate together in 2021 a joint document or joint proposals for the revision of these Directives.

As far as we are concerned, the contract for our European Project VS/2019/0016 will end on 31 March 2021. We will use the next three months to organize our Final Conference, within the limits imposed by the restrictions. We will involve all the trade unions which originally joined the Project, together with the employers’ representatives.

We have already a preliminary agreement for 26 February 2021 – also with MEP Brando Benifei, who has collaborated with us in the last five years, both in this and in other European Projects, helping us promote our initiatives concerning EWC legislation.

We will also involve the workers and their direct union representatives who took part in our meeting on 7 October 2020. Considering the successful experiment, we have already invited them to our Final Conference.

With regard to their participation and to the analysis of industry 4.0 change, we will continue to rely on and to collaborate with the research institute ISRF-LAB.

As a follow-up to this European Project, we plan to work on the initiative we envisaged with Jens Thau and Angelo Di Cristo. This initiative would be fully in line with what we established in the Contract signed with the DG Employment of the European Commission.

We will of course continue to work towards the completion of our Project with Agostino Megale, Secretary-General of FISAC-CGIL from 2010 to 2018, then President of ISRF-LAB, who now also holds a prestigious position at a national level in CGIL.

We will also involve the International Department of FISAC-CGIL in our collective discussion.

Last but not least, the meeting of 7-8 October 2020, as well as all the other collective initiatives of the Project, and the preparation of paper, electronic, online and audio-visual materials have been made possible by the accurate and professional work of the Organization Department of FISAC-CGIL, headed by Cristiano Hoffmann, and by the Administration Department of FISAC-CGIL, headed by Rita Diotallevi.

We know we can count on their invaluable support, together with the one of Simona Borelli from the Office of the Secretary-General. We can also count on the political support of the legal representative of our Project, Nino Baseotto, Secretary-General of FISAC-CGIL. Since he was elected few months ago, he has only recently learned about the details of our Project, but we will certainly involve him in the preparation of our next initiatives.

Mario Ongaro European Project Director

Rome, 24 - 25 - 26 February 2021

Introduction

The Final Conference was delayed for more than eight months (it was originally scheduled on 15-17 June 2020). Nonetheless, we sticked to the basic objectives we had indicated in April 2018, when we presented the Project to the DG Employment.

The agenda included the same kinds of participants (union representatives from the multinationals and the trade unions participating in the Project + employers’ representatives + Member of the European Parliament) we had listed at the time. And we also maintained the same structure, with joint sessions, sessions for union representatives only, and the final round table.

During our Final Conference it was not possible to have a representative of the DG Employment. We promptly sent an invitation, but our contact person was not able to attend. Unfortunately, we could not change the February dates because of a number of organizational and contractual constraints. The Grant Agreement which funded the Project activities was set to expire on 31 March 2021 – after a 5-month extension that was agreed upon with a specific amendment to the original Agreement.

We neither discussed nor drew up any final documents. However, we agreed with the social partners of the finance industry and with the Member of the European Parliament to keep on working together to reach an agreement on some joint proposals to update and amend EU Directives on employee involvement.

We laid the foundations for this common path during the meeting of the steering committee which took place last October. Back then, we met Jens Thau, President of the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the European Banking Federation, Giancarlo Ferrara, Head of Social Affairs for the Italian Banking Association, and Angelo Di Cristo, Head of UNI Global Finance. The latter is the European and international federation with which FISAC-CGIL is affiliated. One of the institutional tasks of UNI Finance is to engage in European Social Dialogue of the banking and insurance sectors in the name and on behalf of the national trade unions which represent the workers of these sectors.

The Final Conference marked the beginning of this work, with the goal of organizing a joint event by the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022.

I will get back to this later on, when I summarize the topics and discussion of the round table and of the joint session held in preparation of it.

FIRST SESSION 24.02.2021

The attachments to this Report include the full speeches by Mario Ongaro, Project Director, and Agostino Megale, formerly President of ISRF LAB and Secretary-General of FISAC-CGIL, with whom I collaborated on the political and research elements of the Project.

Very briefly, here are the titles of the two speeches and of their chapters:

UPDATE ON THE EUROPEAN PROJECT AND FUTURE PROSPECTS (Mario Ongaro)

1. Constraints, limits, potential and opportunities of an online conference: between pandemic and digitalization

1. A different use of time in a different logistical organization of the collective events in a European Project

1. Our agenda for the Final Plenary of 24-25-26 February: three questions to EWC representatives

1. When there is no alternative to the renegotiation of the constituent agreement

1. The ability of EWCs and trade unions to represent new workers

1. The 4.0 workers involved in this European Project, the EU Directives and the need to reform collective bargaining

1. From Sofia to Rome through Belgrade

1. Our fitness check of the EU Directives on employee involvement, our dialogue with employers’ representatives, the collaboration with UNI Finance, the relationship with the European Parliament

1. The final round table and the follow-up to the European Project

AGOSTINO MEGALE

Introduction (Rome, 24 February 2021)

1. The role of trade unions and EWCs in the era of digitalization, of changes in human work (which does not disappear) and of the acceleration caused by the pandemic

1. EWCs and the anticipation of change in the framework of Next Generation EU

1. Our 4 key points (combined with the 13 proposals by professor Dorssemont) to anticipate change in relation to business plans and transnational groups

1. The need to govern change in the financial sector in the framework of Next Generation EU and of an effective employee involvement

1. Strong trade unions with new skills to take up and meet the challenge of change

1. Using the productivity increases generated by digitalization to protect and retrain employees

AGOSTINO MEGALE • Introductory Report at the Final Conference  24ᵗʰ February 2021

Good afternoon, everybody.

I would like to thank you all for the preparatory work of the past few weeks and months. As Mario repeatedly pointed out, despite being forced by the pandemic and by the health care emergency to extend the duration of the project by five months, we always continued to work on the implementation of the Project and the achievement of our objectives.

I am referring to:

1. the connection between trade unions and changes in work organization,

1. the role of trade unions in European Works Councils, to business plans,

1. the digital revolution,

and to:

1. the trade unions’ possibility of governing change in relation to the impact of digital technologies, which further accelerate changes in work organization.

Furthermore, the health care emergency has highlighted that what was once very theoretical is now rapidly becoming a reality, including the approach to the novelties of the digital world and new platforms.

During the dramatic COVID-19 emergency, there has been a huge increase in work from home and in the use of digital technologies, which have made it possible to eliminate time barriers. As is the case for our remote meeting today, the connection is immediate. But digital technologies have also helped to overcome geographical distance.

We are now able to carry out activities even from remote, without time and space boundaries.

In addition, in the framework of digital change, it is as if we could and should imagine that this fourth industrial revolution is setting the conditions for a new Renaissance.

In this condition, scientific research and technological innovation – both with respect to healthcare and to changes in labour economics – become central for mankind.

This new humanism cannot limit itself to the role of profit and the race for wealth, but it should favour the development of a philosophy of the human being, accompanied by the digital revolution – also through the spread of robots and algorithms. In this philosophy, the human being, with its genius and research, remains central, plays a key role and becomes more valuable, regardless of the efficiency and progress of technological tools.

I say so because not only many believe that digital change will transform work and society, as well as the relationship with the various forms of democracy (the democracy of representation, digital direct democracy and its impact on modern society).

Very often, it is also commonplace to believe that, through the advent and spread of robots, microchips and algorithms, major digital changes may even lead to the disappearance of human work.

Well, this argument is completely unfounded.

Work certainly changes and evolves. But while some professions and jobs disappear, new ones are created.

It is no chance that, according to the latest study by an American university, 350 out of 700 analyzed professions are destined to disappear.

However, an equal number of professions is destined to be created, partly in a known way and partly in an unpredictable way, depending on the evolution of change.

This introduction simply helps us to go back to what we have done in recent years: underlining the value of the results of surveys, in-depth analyses and research, but also of your own contributions. Now is the time to build the core of a project.

I would like to remind you all that we had set ourselves the goal of empowering workers’ representatives and union representatives in EWCs and transnational groups to govern the changes brought about by the digital revolution on work organization.

We wanted workers’ representatives and union representatives in EWCs to be informed before the actual adoption of business plans and to be able to discuss them in advance with the management.

With respect to the anticipation of change, we have elaborated a proposal with an ambitious objective:

reviewing the first Directive on EWCs 26 years after its adoption (and 12 years after Recast Directive 2009/38). This Directive started a great experiment of transnational workers’ representation which is still unique today, regardless of the limits and drawbacks which we may have encountered and which we have partly identified through this European Project.

However, one basic fact is certain:

the participation of workers in governing changes in work organization is extraordinarily valuable. It can be improved, strengthened and, in part, adapted to changes. But there is no doubt that the step forward made 26-27 years ago and the additional step forward made 12 years ago marked a significant progress we can build upon. We cannot go back.

An example of adaptation to the dramatic COVID-19 emergency certainly is the investment in research made in many countries all over the world – including Italy and Europe, albeit with some delays.

These efforts have made it possible to develop vaccines in record time. Now it is necessary to immunize everyone everywhere in order to end this situation and to be able to better face the impact of this dramatic crisis also at the economic and social level.

It should also be noted that, so far, the European Union has reacted in a different and more effective way than in the case of the economic crisis of 2008-2009.

Today, the European Union has abandoned the principles of austerity and an over-rigorous approach, without renouncing the idea of building responsibly the future of the EU. This will be done through the “Next Generation EU” package, which will fund the Recovery Plans of the various Member States.

The European Union has pledged to invest 720 billion Euro, while the ECB has planned to buy more than 1 trillion Euro of government bonds and the European budget will have the same size.

This extraordinary effort concerns us not only for its impact, but also because the Recovery Plan approved by the EU has three essential guidelines:

1. Sustainable development

1. Digital revolution

1. Social inclusion, social cohesion and reduction of inequalities

We started our European Project in less difficult times (back in 2018), but we had already predicted some of the effects of the revolution of labour and some of its changes.

Our action is now part of a larger framework in which the EU has decided to use more than 250 billion Euro (out of the 750 billion Euro of the total plan) for the digital revolution.

As a consequence, every business plan and every innovation plan will necessarily include high-quality and large-size investments in digital innovation.

This is why the proposal we drafted and discussed during our previous meetings is short, yet effective. We do not intend to revolutionize the functioning of EWCs. Our purpose is to give trade unions and workers’ representatives in EWCs the possibility of being informed and consulted in advance on the effects of digital investments on labour.

Our proposal is organized in four points:

1) The European Works Council must be informed in advance of the impact which each business plan (including any digital innovation processes, but not only) of the transnational group will have on workers.

2) In addition to being given in advance, information should cover also the qualitative and quantitative effects of the plan on employment. What will be the impact of the investments planned by a group on the quality of workers? On employment and gender equality? On the quality of employment?

What will change in working conditions?

These are relevant questions for the potential spread of remote work caused by digitalization. Also during the pandemic, remote work has been a resource and it has not been opposed by finance industry workers, who for the most part have actually enjoyed it.

However, this form of work must clearly include ways to guarantee the right to disconnect, as has been done in Italy with the latest national industry-wide agreement. Indeed, working conditions, working hours and the employment relationship should not change when working from home.

For instance, it is hard to imagine how to look after children while being busy with work activities at home.

Time will tell for how long traditional employment, work from home as we have experienced it so far, and traditional open-ended contracts will coexist with new, growing professions like promoters and producers, who partly work as freelancers in the financial sector.

As I was saying, information should focus on the quantity and quality of new jobs, on the impact on work from home, on the organization of work, on full-time, part-time, temporary and other employees, on working hours and on professional roles.

Information on all of these elements must be given to EWCs in advance in order to start consultation over a Social Plan, which in our opinion must be an integral part of the Business Plan of a multinational company.

After all, what is it that changes in work? The working conditions, the way in which work is organized, the training needed to acquire new skills and transition from old technologies to the new world of robotics and digital technologies.

Finally, in the framework of point 2) of our proposal, it is also necessary to have a clear understanding of the impact which digital change has on the quantity and quality of products.

3) The third point is very important, because information should be provided not when the business plan has already been approved, but not even when it has yet to be conceived. Instead, the information should be provided before the draft business plan is approved by the board of directors and before it is presented to the markets.

So what does it mean to provide information in advance and to let the EWC discuss the impact on employment with the management?

Of course, the EWC members should always be bound by a duty of confidentiality.

We know that this is a very delicate issue, especially when dealing with information that can have an impact on the markets, on stock exchanges, and on the value of stocks. I would like to warn those who tend to simplify everything that the obligation of confidentiality may be the most delicate point – and also the most difficult to solve – in the development we are envisaging. Indeed, the information which should be shared in advance is often confidential and available only to a restricted number of people. In a negotiation with trade unions, the information would be limited to a “select” committee of people to address the issue. In any case, it is necessary to create the conditions to guarantee confidentiality.

4) The fourth point of our proposal consists in enabling the EWC to be consulted in good time.

The EWC must express its point of view on all the possible effects on employment of the Business Plan and propose the inclusion of a specific Social Plan – as mentioned in point 2 – to govern changes in work organization. When the Business Plan is approved, it is not necessary to already have an agreement on all the effects of changes, but the management and the EWC should have already agreed on certain general points, like avoiding dismissals and underlining the fundamental importance of training.

Finally, once the Business Plan is approved, negotiations can take place at the local level, with the Social Plan – an integral part of the Business Plan – already providing guarantees to avoid dramatic consequences for the workforce.

These four points are certainly the core of our proposed trade union policy. They are intertwined with the 13 proposals by professor Filip Dorssemont. But the key point of our argument is to enable trade unions and European Works Councils to be up to the challenge posed by digital innovation.

In short, we cannot forget that we are envisaging a new, green and sustainable Europe, which makes public investments in digital infrastructures, in order not to leave platforms only in the hands of large multinationals like Amazon and Alibaba.

But, beside new sustainable development and digital change, Europe should also invest in the protection of jobs, the promotion of social inclusion and the fight against inequalities. In our sector, the development of sustainable finance (which we have recently addressed in a conference organized by FISAC) must be the prerequisite to face and govern this challenge, together with a stronger, more determined and targeted participation of trade unions and workers’ representatives in the changes brought about by innovation.

Let’s not forget that, in order for the European Union to become the new European Union we are talking about, it requires the implementation of the Recovery Plan guidelines and the achievement of its objectives through the national plans.

Furthermore, the private investments of every single company should also follow the guidelines of the Recovery Plan.

For instance, banks and insurance companies should promote an upturn in private investments by granting credit more easily.

To avoid new non-performing loans, new difficulties in the credit and in the insurance sectors, the European Union needs to complete the banking union, finalize the deposit insurance system and revise the bail-in model.

It is also necessary to introduce a social clause that would require the involvement of trade unions in good time before taking measures concerning any European bank which may have an impact on employment.

In particular, with regard to bad banks, apart from the idea of a European bad bank, every Member State should take measures to prevent the credit sector from encountering the same difficulties it had during the crises of 2008 and 2018.

It is no chance that as much as 27% of branches were substantially closed in Europe between 2008 and 2019. I would like to stress that the impact on employment in Europe has been significant in the past decade.

Approximately 2,400,000 jobs have been lost, including 70,000 voluntary redundancies in Italy.

On the other hand, 22-23,000 new employees have been hired in Italy thanks to the plan for young workers.

However, there is no doubt that, considering the crisis, the impact of digital technologies, the closure of branches and the impact on employment, recent changes have posed a major challenge to the finance industry. And we have to address it in the most difficult time, in the midst of a pandemic that is hitting Italy, and in the midst of a digital revolution.

This is why I say that the credit and finance sector cannot focus solely on the commercial pressure which workers have to deal with. In this regard, it is certainly necessary to reach an agreement or to elaborate a European Directive to contrast this pressure.

Now that the European Union is becoming the driving force of public and private investments in sustainable development, digital technologies and employment, we must see it also as an opportunity for trade unions.

Also thanks to the European Union, trade unions should no longer be uncertain, frightened or hesitant when facing the challenges posed by digital technologies to the world of work.

Trade unions should be aware of their strengths, have their own views and rely on their own analysis. They should not let uncertainty and fear prevail. They should focus on issues like workers’ skills, training, retraining, upskilling, the emergence of new professions, the organization of working hours (e.g. shorter weeks, as in my proposal of working 4 days per week, 8-9 hours per day, for a total of 32-36 working hours per week). In any case, all the traditional arguments of trade unionists should be updated. Through targeted training, the acquisition of new skills and an increased involvement, we need to enable trade unions to handle the challenge of change.

This is why in our previous meetings I said that we have to fight against liquid society or the society of fear. I have always said that digital change cannot focus solely on profit, but it should put human beings, their rights and the dignity of work at the centre.

Trade unions should not only take on the challenge, but even embrace it.

To achieve our purposes, change must be organized in such a way that the productivity increases generated by digital technologies not only favour the modernization of undertakings and their relationship with clients/consumers, but also promote the creation of new and better jobs. We need to rediscover elements of solidarity whereby productivity is used also in connection with working hours.

We need to rediscover and promote elements and ways to let productivity increases boost the actual purchasing power of salaries. But the priority should always be on employment, creating new jobs, giving opportunities to young people who look for a job and cannot find it in many countries (such as Italy, which has a youth unemployment rate of 30%).

Through our Project and the proposal I have quickly summarized, we do not intend to revolutionize everything. Yet, we can promote a significant change, either through the adoption of a new Directive, or – as I said during our latest meeting – through the authentic interpretation of the existing Directive in the light of the changes introduced by the Recovery Plan.

The push towards digital technologies of undertakings should make it possible – if not even automatic – to adopt an expanded interpretation of the Directive. In light of the new guidelines of the Recovery Plan on digital technologies, when drawing up their business plans, transnational groups should be willing to embrace the model we propose.

In these two days, we will certainly have the opportunity to discuss all of these issues more in depth and I am sure that this will strengthen and corroborate our proposal. I would like to take this opportunity to greet you all and wish you a successful meeting. I am confident that the results of this Project have shone a light that will guide and support us in our future information, consultation and negotiation procedures, as we seek to strengthen European Works Council. Let’s not forget that, to an objective observer, the positive aspects of EWCs have so far outweighed the negative ones.

On 24 February

We listened to the point of view of those who experience changes in work organization in their daily lives, i.e. employees and their representatives at the company level.

Their experiences were analyzed in three surveys carried out by sociologist Piero Valentini in collaboration with ISRF LAB, the research institute of FISAC-CGIL.

The first survey involved 50 respondents, including employees and their direct union representatives, from various service departments. Its results can be summarized as follows:

1. Restructuring is no longer achieved through a sequence of different processes occurring one after the other. Restructuring is now a continuous and uninterrupted process. Keeping up with it confuses not only employees and their representatives, but also the managers who organize work. The shared feeling of confusion is a factor that can potentially stimulate a dynamic and innovative social dialogue

1. Respondents are fully aware of the situation and they ask social dialogue and collective bargaining to move from the traditional defensive approach to a proactive approach that can anticipate change

1. The main demands highlighted by the survey are the following: reinforcing the coordination of trade unions at the transnational level; support of national trade unions to EWCs, also through appropriate training; making transnational information effective by advancing it, thus making consultation possible

1. Reconsidering the work-life balance in the light of the widespread diffusion of remote work following COVID-19.

A summary of the results of the second survey was already attached to the report on the meeting of last October.

The experiences of EWCs and transnational groups through the three questions which I asked them:

1) Do you think that information practices and, most of all, CONSULTATION practices are adequate in your EWC?

2) Do you think that the current Agreement regulating your EWC activity can be renegotiated and that such renegotiation can improve the quality of information and, most of all, the quality of consultation?

3) Do you think that 4.0 employees (i.e. the kind of employees who are at the core of this European Project of ours) are adequately represented in your EWC?

Are, or have you been, adequately informed and consulted as EWC about the issues concerning them directly, such as digital innovation and the flexible organization of work and working hours?

Of the eight transnational groups which formally joined the project three years ago through their EWCs and company-level unions, two did not take part in the last two events. This may not be accidental, considering that we were forced to delay the two events for many months because of the pandemic. We were not able to keep Groupama and Société Générale involved, while KBC and Unicredit respectively did not take part in the meeting of the steering group of last October and in this Final Conference.

We were clearly very sorry for these “defections”. However, we are not particularly concerned, because, to a certain extent, they can be considered as normal and linked to turnover in union representative bodies. It is reasonable to believe that some of the individuals who undertook to actively participate in the Project for its entire duration in 2018 (and 2019) reached the end of their terms of office and were not able to delegate their successors. Furthermore, the change might have occurred during the course of the Project because of its unusual extension due to the pandemic.

With respect to the geographical and transnational representativeness and to the relevance of the six groups which continued to take part in the Project, there was no decline. Indeed, the six groups are present across the entire European Union, including candidate countries, and they have a global footprint. Furthermore, their employees are traditionally represented by well-rooted trade unions and the quality of industrial relations is very high.

After this methodological explanation, I would like to summarize the answers to the three questions above, together with important parallel information that we collected on the priorities existing in these groups. In all groups, the priority was the impact of the pandemic on work organization through the massive diffusion of remote work, which was made possible by the acceleration of digitalization.

The answers to the three questions basically confirmed what we have been saying for years on the functioning of EWCs:

The existing constituent agreements should be renegotiated for two basic reasons:

they are not in line with Directive 2009/38. Some of these agreements are really distant from the principles established by Directive 2009/38, while others only require some adjustments.

Digitalization and the resulting considerable changes in work organization are posing problems to the full implementation of the rights to information and consultation laid down in constituent agreements. Despite being in line with Directive 2009/38, these agreements were written with a much more traditional work organization in mind than the current one.

For this reason, the representation of 4.0 employees has become a challenge. EWCs are facing this challenge, but they have to deal with the lack of training of trade unionists – an issue which we had already identified when we elaborated this Project three years ago.

During the discussion, we also went back to the issue of the constituent agreement of the EWC of BNP-Paribas. The management does not want to renegotiate it arguing that the agreement was concluded pursuant to art. 13 of Directive 94/45. We believe that this argument is unfounded. The company for which that agreement was signed no longer exists, because BNP-Paribas is the result of a merger which radically changed the structure of the group.

However, this is not just a legal matter. Our argument cannot be disputed. Proof of this is the renegotiation which I led in 2019 in my capacity as expert from UNI Europa, which led to the renegotiation of the EWC agreement of Crédit Suisse, which had also been concluded pursuant to art. 13. The real issue is political: it concerns the relationships of power existing in the EWC between trade unions from different countries, between UNI affiliates and non-affiliates, and the will/advantage of opening a discussion/dispute with the group’s management.

Our only possibility is the manifest inadequacy of information and consultation, whose limits are clearly due to the inadequacy of the agreement. This is the only possibility we have of convincing even the most reluctant ones of the absolute need to renegotiate the agreement in order to avoid the poor functioning of the EWC.

However, in the long term the only possible solution is the legislative one, i.e. an amendment to the survival clause for agreements concluded pursuant to art. 13 of Directive 94/45. The survival clause is included under art. 14a of Directive 2009/38.

Another issue was the one raised by Elena Cherubini, member of the Secretariat of the Central Coordination Unit for FISAC-CGIL at Intesa Sanpaolo. Unfortunately, the largest Italian group – one of the largest in Europe – stands out for not having created any EWC yet.

Elena’s full speech is attached to this Report for reference.

Second Session • 25.02.2021

This session was opened by the presentation of the results of the third survey by sociologist Piero Valentini. This survey focused on 4.0 employees of the banking industry through a series of wide-ranging and in-depth interviews.

The full speech and the PowerPoint presentation by Piero Valentini are attached to this Report for reference.

The presentation outlines a very complex and dynamic situation, with both positive and critical aspects. It is a rapidly changing situation, which requires trade unions to be able to represent this new kind of employees, even if for the moment they remain a minority.

Why do we pay so much attention to them?

Because these employees represent the future. Because we know that, in the coming years, the generation of employees and union officers who organize traditional work in banks – who are still a majority – will respectively leave the production cycle and trade unions simply for age-related reasons. This turnover started more than 10 years ago, but in recent years there has been an acceleration, which has been driven in particular by early retirement schemes funded by the finance industry.

Therefore, trade unions must be up to the challenge of engaging and organizing these employees and of identifying among them potential union representatives.

There is no realistic alternative to this.

But the presentation also focuses on entrepreneurs, companies and employers’ representatives.

If, as is predictable and fair, companies invest in young employees who represent the future and expect high productivity and profitability from them, they must be aware that they also have to meet the expectations of these employees and reward them with appropriate professional opportunities and salaries. Companies must overcome organizational uncertainties and bottlenecks, invest increasing resources in training, and provide guarantees in relation to the responsibilities which 4.0 employees are often forced to take upon themselves. Companies must implement measures to prevent demotivation in this kind of employees. If they really plan to invest in these workers, companies must seriously take this problem into consideration. This topic certainly deserves being investigated further, but it fully pertains to social dialogue and collective bargaining.

The presentation by Piero Valentini was integrated by Mariarosaria Mazzotta from the Coordination Unit for FISAC-CGIL at Intesa Sanpaolo. She made a detailed overview of the working conditions and contractual arrangements introduced by the company with the so-called Mixed Contract. Under this agreement, young workers work for Intesa Sanpaolo for two days in five in a branch as employees, and for the remaining three days as freelance financial promoters.

Mariarosaria highlighted how the two working conditions are balanced and she described the guarantees provided to these young workers in terms of salaries and legal provisions. She also underscored the need for trade unions to make a targeted and specific effort to engage and represent this kind of 4.0 employees.

A colleague from Intesa Sanpaolo representative of this category highlighted the potential of this peculiar working condition. In particular, these workers have considerable opportunities to freely organize their working hours, they have interesting prospects in terms of salary growth, and they feel more motivated to work and achieve results. The main problem is inadequate training, which is excessively delegated to the colleagues working in branches, who are not motivated to train these young workers. Another problem consists in the “unproductive” workload due to merely administrative and bureaucratic tasks. Furthermore, these workers have to deal with the tax-related obligations typical of self-employment. However, since they work exclusively for Intesa Sanpaolo, the company should take care of these tasks.

The session continued with the speeches of the national trade unions from France, Italy, Malta, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary (see attachments).

On 25 February, the afternoon session focused on the preparation of the round table of the following day. There was a very open and informal discussion which involved Giancarlo Ferrara (ABI, Italian Banking Association), Jens Thau (European Banking Federation) and Claudio Cornelli (Head of International Affairs at FISAC-CGIL).

Given the stand-by situation in terms of the EWC to be set up, we want to stress this crucial political issue through the contribution by Elena Cherubini

ELENA CHERUBINI / Fisac-Cgil Secretary in Intesa Sanpaolo Group

(in charge of the transnational dimension and issues)

Good evening everyone and thank you for inviting me to the plenary conference of this European project which, in spite of all the current problems, seems to be going well.

In this project I really appreciated the possibility of listening to and spreading the voice of the men and women workers who had the opportunity to participate directly and who are directly involved in technological change – not only in digitalization, but also in the fast and continuous change and adaptation that have concerned many colleagues because of the health emergency.

I have been asked to speak about the following topics: an overview of the situation at the national level and one at the transnational level, in terms of prospects and current bargaining.

As far as the transnational dimension of the Intesa Sanpaolo group is concerned, after the acquisition of another important national group such as UBI, the bank ranks second in the Eurozone after BNP Paribas in terms of capitalization, and among the top banks in the wider European region.

So, you can see how important it would be to inform employees across the organization about what is happening, given that the bank definitely has a supranational organization.

Today's figures, which have not changed since 30 September, show that the group has a strong transnational footprint in Eastern Europe and the rest of the world with 1,000 branches, over 7 million customers, and banks that are well rooted in their respective geographical areas. I would like to mention some of them, even though I may be pronouncing them wrong, as a sign of recognition of the colleagues who work there: Intesa Sanpaolo Albania, Intesa Sanpaolo Bosnia-Herzegovina, Privredna Banka Zagreb in Croatia, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank România, Banca Intesa Beograd in Serbia, VUB Bank in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank in Slovenia, CIB Bank in Hungary, Eximbank in Moldova, Pravex Bank in Ukraine, AlexBank in Egypt and Bank of Qingdao in China.

As you can see, most of the countries I have mentioned are European, but as Mario clearly stated – and I will not go back over it – unfortunately it has not yet been possible even to start a dialogue on the potential establishment of a European Works Council. So, I am not in a position to provide any information on what happens outside of Italy, on the health and safety conditions of people who do not work in Italy, but who are people like us: they share with us the same needs, the same claims, the same work procedures, the same rules. The same European directives and regulations also apply to them, like the MiFID, privacy, antitrust and supervision regulations, or the non-performing loans regulations we are all familiar with. And these employees are, no doubt, all facing huge changes.

We just heard, a few days ago, that CIB Bank, a subsidiary of Intesa Sanpaolo in Hungary, has launched a rather peculiar online mortgage application process. First of all, they are getting about 300 submissions per month and this means that there was a customers' need, but I do not know how this is being managed and what kind of workload this is implying. In addition, a new "video banker" professional profile was created for mortgage specialists who interact with customers by video after their mortgage application has passed the first online submission stage.

Finally, the whole procedure – and I believe this is possible thanks to Hungarian law – can be concluded with a voice signature. So, you can see how the innovation processes are all heading towards the same target: massive digitalization.

This information is circulating internally in the bank, but it is not specifically addressed to the unions. This is unbelievable in a banking group that has very high-level industrial relations and a type of bargaining that I would define as continuous, since so many agreements are being signed: on average not a month goes by without an agreement; they are actually even more frequent.

Given that our sector has an international and European dimension, having an exchange of information would be fundamental. As we all agreed during the last session in October, the pandemic made us realize how important it would be to know how my own company, the company I am working for, is applying health protection rules elsewhere. Are these rules the same? Are they different? Are they better? So as to extend good practices from one country to another through local agreements.

On my side, I can only say that we will keep committing ourselves, with the support of the Trade Union Alliance and, above all of UNI Finance, to initiating talks to establish a European Works Council at Intesa Sanpaolo. I must say that this would shine a light, not so much on the unions, but on the people, on the colleagues who are fully involved in achieving the group's business objectives in other countries.

It is estimated that one fifth of net revenues is generated abroad, and these are the figures that make the group one of the leading banks in Europe. To come back to the national situation, with the acquisition of the UBI group in 2020, Intesa Sanpaolo has strengthened its position in Italy as the leading bank in terms of capitalisation – with 500 billion lending, representing one third of Italy's GDP – and as the main holder of government bonds in our country. This bank seems to be becoming Italy's bank.

Moreover, as stated by its CEO a few days ago at a FISAC event, this is a bank that is planning to extend an amount of credit equal to the funds that will be allocated to Italy through the Next Generation EU programme. We are talking about 200 billion Euro to support companies investing in innovation and in the green economy. This is an important decision that shows the company's commitment, but also the skills, competences and commitment of its employees, who will have to work hard on this front too, and for whom we are asking for recognition.

Now, let us consider the people working in the group. After the acquisition of UBI, and the sale of a number of branches to Banca Popolare Emilia Romagna to comply with anti-trust regulations, 5,000 people left the group for another bank. So, we acquired UBI, but 5,000 employees were moved to another bank, and another 7,500 or so left through the early retirement agreement I described in the October session. In 3 years' time this group will have about 70,000 employees, also taking into account that the hiring/shedding ratio will be 1:2, one worker hired for every two workers leaving the company.

This is an aspect that I would like to emphasize because we see it as a success. In October, I spoke of our commitment, or rather, of a company that had committed itself to hiring 2,500 people, and we were able to increase this number to 3,500 people. Therefore, we have managed to bring in 1,000 more people, and with an initial agreement that was signed at the end of September, which commits the company to focus hiring in the branch networks and in the areas of the country which are most at a disadvantage, in particular Southern Italy.

This is a commitment, however, that we will have to carefully monitor, because it is precisely related to the changes we are experiencing right now and that are being discussed in this project: the process of digitalization, the fragmentation of work, the traditional branch that no longer exists or is no longer the only point of contact with customers, the increase in branch closures – the percentages described by Mr. Megale are striking – the surge in agile work (remote work), which during the pandemic has become the rule rather than the exception, and atypical jobs regulated by the so called "Mixed Contracts" – which we will discuss tomorrow – with workers having a mixed salaried and independent status.

I do not want this to suggest that it is pointless to increase the number of employees, or that agile working, smart working, remote working do not require that many people. That is not the case and we do not think so, because customers actually need more support and colleagues need more knowledge and expertise to be able to deal with these changes.

Therefore, training must remain the mainstay of the future to manage change: it must be ongoing for those who have already been working for many years, but also for digital natives, as Pietro Valentini said, since it is understandable that they too may have difficulties in the face of a change that is continuous and always different.

I would like to make one last comment on agile work because it will certainly change the work of the future. We already had a pre-COVID agreement and we will have to regulate agile working in a more serene phase. However, the bank is already planning something, because what we are negotiating at the moment concerns the acquisition of UBI, which will lead to the merger of UBI and Intesa Sanpaolo branches next April. The company has told us that in many places, the branch that is going to incorporate UBI will not necessarily be restructured to increase space.

The bank in essence does not think that an enlargement is necessary to allow each employee to have their own desk. Therefore, in branches where the workforce is greater than 10, it is possible that not everybody will have a workstation, and if this concerns more than 40 people, a reduction of 25% is envisaged.

In the current situation, with a lot of absences and agile work on a daily basis, this compromise may seem acceptable, but if we think about it, we are actually facing a revolution: a whole world has come to an end. So, we have to prepare to live in a new world, but without losing positive elements such as training and on-site work.

We will also have to deal with the practical consequences of this approach when we bargain for our colleagues, and I do not think this will be easy, especially as this was not even conceivable or imaginable a year ago.

Therefore, managing the impact and repercussions of work changing so quickly requires a specific preparation, also on our side; trade union officers require proper training.

This is yet another reason why an exchange is necessary and useful to make progress at the transnational level. It would be important to learn how other countries are tackling training for change, also for trade unionists, who will have to support people in a process that impacts on the working space (I no longer have my workplace, my desk) and working time, especially for women, as Ana said. Time is the border between private and working life, a border that can be blurred, where it can be difficult to exercise the right to disconnect. In addition to this impact on the space-time dimensions, we will also see impacts on the psychological dimension.

There are studies on agile work that show how the initial resistance to change, that we all experience when usual patterns are disrupted, can create a conflict that must be managed because, unfortunately, it can also turn into an illness. Therefore, to manage change, it will be important to work on individual awareness, so that each employee becomes aware of their rights, of what is changing in order to be able to manage change. This applies both to the union and to the workers.

As we have been saying for a long time, bargaining on agile working will see us committed to demanding financial compensation for expenses, for ergonomic workstations that are not available at home, for meal vouchers, and the right to disconnect. However, all this will not be enough if we do not take action and work with people to help them experience this transition in the best possible way.

I think that the topics of this project, which are change, digitalization, and employee awareness raising and involvement, are key to facing the future with the right tools.

A great advantage, and starting point, is that we are here to discuss all of this, and we have been doing so for some time. So I think that through UNI Finance it will be possible to keep in touch and maintain a dialogue among the countries where the Intesa Sanpaolo group is present, and this will be a source of strength.

The Final Round Table: the speed of change and the european directives on employee involvement

Here is the list of participants in the round table:

for the employers’ side of the banking sector:

1. Jens Thau, President of the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the European Banking Federation

1. Emanuele Recchia, Head of Industrial Relations for the Unicredit group

1. Giancarlo Ferrara from the Italian Banking Association

for the trade unions:

1. Angelo Di Cristo for the European and international level. He is the Head of UNI Global Finance, the international federation with which FISAC-CGIL is affiliated, together with the major trade unions of our sector. UNI also represents workers in Commerce and, more in general, in the Communication Industry

1. Susanna Camusso, former Secretary-General and currently Head of International Policies for CGIL

1. Nino Baseotto, Secretary-General of FISAC-CGIL. We will not ask him any direct questions, but we will ask him to conclude proceedings, the round table and this 3-day event.

The round table is coordinated by Mario Ongaro, European Project Director. Each participant will be asked two questions. Some questions are the same for several participants, others are different depending on the specific role of each participant.

MARIO ONGARO

My first question is for the President of the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the European Banking Federation, Jens Thau:

During our latest meeting, when we had a very interesting exchange of views with some of you as employers’ representatives, we were able to identify in particular two important points of agreement concerning our proposals for the review/recasting of some parts of the EWC Directive and, more in general, the Directives on employee involvement. These points of agreement are:

EU Directives on employee involvement also need to take into account recent changes. Therefore, it is necessary to update the current regulatory framework to ensure that social dialogue keeps playing its crucial role in all EU Member States.

The definitions of information and consultation are different and inconsistent from one Directive to another. Therefore, we need them to be re-written or amended in order to make these definitions more uniform and rational. In this way, in all the EU Member States represented within a transnational group, social dialogue can take place in a legally consistent framework and with clear definitions of the available tools and of the common objectives to be pursued by the social partners.

Could you please confirm that we agree on these two points? Could you suggest a way to work on them together with us as trade union representatives and as European Works Councils?

JENS THAU

Thank you, Mario and good morning, everybody. I am happy to take part in this Project and in particular in this important round table.

What Mario referred to is something he and I, together with UNI Finance, have often discussed in relation to social dialogue. The banking industry has to face several challenges, which must be seriously taken into consideration. The EWC Directives do not fully represent the needs and demands of the banking industry with regard to European consultation within groups.

This happens in several EU Member States for a number of reasons.

We are certainly facing some complex challenges. Due to local rules, traditions and habits, in the banking sector there are different employee involvement models already at the national level. Of course, these national rules go back a long way and they predate EWCs. The problem is how to successfully transpose the European legislation on EWCs into the existing national legislations.

To put it diplomatically, the rules on how to combine the European Directive with national legislations are not always perfect. They definitely need to be improved. In order to make EWCs more effective, we must absolutely create an area where they can operate. It is not enough to simply add EWCs to the existing national rules.

So our dialogue is very important to understand which values we can add at the European level.

In this regard, Mario has already highlighted two very important points.

In the very different regulations existing across Europe, no one has dedicated enough time to harmonize things and to make all local and national initiatives consistent with the European ones.

We obviously know that Directives are one thing and daily work within individual companies and industrial groups is another. We know that we can always find a way at the European level. We need to do the same also at the company level, in order to harmoniously integrate the added value of EWCs within a company.

In this respect, I think it is important to leave companies free to find the solution that best suits them. This is the best possible solution for them. I think both parties agree on this.

Of course, someone’s evaluation of legislation and idea of what Directives should depend on the actual functioning of the EWC in a given company.

Some believe that it may be best to find a single model that is simple enough to be applied in all situations, without too many changes.

In my opinion, this is feasible in the banking industry, but not necessarily in other sectors.

With respect to changes in work organization, considering the speed of change in the banking sector, I think this topic should be treated separately from the Directive. When the Directive is adopted, the speed of change has already made it obsolete.

Furthermore, work organization is in a way an issue of competition between one bank and the other, both in relation to employees and clients. It goes back to what a company represents on the market and for its employees. If you think that there could be a single approach for the whole sector – the only possible one for a Directive – you risk leaving out the needs which a highly digitalized, project-oriented banking sector requires, also in relation to the functioning of the EWC. This is why I think that many of the rules adopted by works councils are in certain respects different from the prescriptions of the Directive.

This is the first issue raised by Mario. I want to strongly underline that we support increased flexibility. And the people sitting in a bank's EWC deserve more trust. They are highly trained, skilled workers with many ideas and a considerable potential. They can organize their own EWC activities more independently than workers from other sectors, who would need more help for the legislative aspects. In the banking industry we focus more on the freedom we need to have new forms of work – which are also reflected in the work of EWCs.

This potential can be better exploited in the framework of the Directives.

With respect to the second point, what Mario said is of key importance. The various Directives on employee involvement create a sort of mosaic. It is not only a matter of clarifying or harmonizing the rules. I would not say that they are contradictory, but they are hard to align. This adds to the difficulty we have to align EWCs with the national traditions of employee involvement.

With respect to the European level, I would like to go back to our latest Plenary, which took place in Rome in November 2019. There, we said that it is necessary to clearly distinguish the different roles.

With regard to employee involvement, EWCs must be able to make the most of their abilities. For instance, EWCs are not supervisory boards. The real issue for EWCs is getting the information in good time and being free to make assessments and discuss with employers. A supervisory board does not have this kind of freedom.

This potential strength of EWCs is very important. We need to promote this idea and we need an adequate regulatory framework. In this respect, since our sector is at the forefront of knowledge-based work, I believe it is very important to check what the needs and desires of employees’ representatives are in order for European Works Councils to work effectively.

It will be very interesting to hear what other participants in this round table will say, especially about possible improvements. Many organizations have EWCs which work very well – not thanks to the Directive, but thanks to the rules which the EWCs gave themselves, going beyond the Directive.

We should also take into account what Mario said. I think we agree on this point, but we need to continue to work in this direction.

I believe that the best way to do so in the framework of European social dialogue is not an exclusive of the banking sector. So we are exchanging views with other sectors, including in the field of social dialogue. But I think we should also consider the four bullet points presented by FISAC, the views expressed by the representatives of the Unicredit EWC, as well as the issues raised by professor Filip Dorssemont.

In my opinion, these are the foundations for our next steps. We need to make the most of the results of this very important Project. With the format we will be allowed to use, we need to continue to work in this direction in order to put these points in practice. We could also lobby together the European legislator in order to bring these issues to its attention. These are indeed very relevant issues for a sector like ours, which represents knowledge-based work.

I will stop here for now, and I will be happy to take any other question.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you very much, Jens Thau. You gave a very exhaustive answer to my first question and, in part, also to the second one I had prepared.

I see that Emanuele Recchia is online, so I would like to ask you to reply to the following question, which I had prepared specifically for you:

The speed of change in work organization is transforming most professional profiles and it requires a quick reskilling and upskilling of a large group of industry workers. These trends have been further accelerated by the pandemic, which forced the physical relocation of workforce at all levels.

The optimization of human capital, together with workers’ motivation, is more decisive than ever for business success in an increasingly competitive global context.

Do you think that social dialogue, information and – above all – consultation of workers’ representatives in EWCs (and, more in general, in the framework of industrial relations within the whole group – not just in Italy) are up to these challenges? Or do you think that changes are needed to tackle them? If so, which changes are needed?

EMANUELE RECCHIA – HEAD OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS FOR THE UNICREDIT GROUP

First of all, good morning everybody. It is a pleasure to be here with all of you, even if only virtually. Hopefully, sooner or later these virtual meetings will be replaced by traditional physical meetings. We need to meet in person, because after one year of remote work we are all a bit tired of it. I really hope that next time we will be able to greet each other and shake our hands.

To reply to Mario’s question, I deem it appropriate to first contextualize the situation in Unicredit to give a more pertinent answer.

In the last 10 or 15 years, there has been a strategic and competitive repositioning process in the entire banking system. The way banks work has changed. Adaptations have been made after the various financial crises. This has been necessary also in order to regain credibility and customer trust.

In this very difficult period and during this repositioning process, Unicredit has been able to successfully govern the situation. This has been possible also thanks to the excellent relations with trade unions, which have traditionally played a major role in our group.

Two days ago I signed the agreement on the productivity bonus, which will be awarded to all employees. This is another achievement that was made possible by our collaboration with trade unions.

The Unicredit group has regularly involved trade unions, not only in Italy, but also in all the European countries where it is present. This involvement has traditionally led to positive results, as it has helped to manage very difficult moments.

Another peculiarity of the Unicredit group is that we are the only systemically relevant bank in Italy. We are a real multinational. Just to give you an idea, we are the first bank in 13 European markets, and our network covers another 16 markets around the world.

Our presence across many countries has necessarily required us to adopt a different model of industrial relations from most other Italian banks. Our headquarters are located in Italy, so we are one of the few international groups with a EWC to be based in Italy.

The other Italian multinationals do not always have a successful operational structure like ours.

Our approach to industrial relations has necessarily been influenced by our DNA as an international banking group.

We are used to saying that we have a global approach, a global strategy and a local implementation plan.

What does it mean?

I will get back to this later on. We like to devise HR management strategies at the global level by involving the EWC of the Unicredit group. Then, the local implementation occurs with the involvement of the local trade unions, which play a primary role, without the EWC prevailing over them.

It is always important to consider the objectives of the European Works Council and, more specifically, of the Unicredit group.

In our constituent agreement we established four objectives:

1. Improving the communication process. Our group has more than 80,000 employees. In large-size organizations like ours, the communication process must necessarily be adapted and the EWC has always helped in that.

1. Improving the level of understanding of the communications of the group management.

1. Ensuring and strengthening the international footprint of the group.

1. Improving and encouraging industrial relations at the local level.

In the last 15 years, the Unicredit EWC has always worked effectively and explicitly to pursue these goals. The EWC has always strived to play an important role in the international framework of our group.

I would like to remind you that our EWC has signed five Joint Statements, which have often preceded contract innovations later introduced in many countries. For instance, our provisions on work-life balance were later integrated in the Italian national collective bargaining agreement for the banking industry. But there have been also other important Joint Statements, such as the latest on remote work.

Mario earlier referred to the physical relocation of workforce. This is, and will be, a central issue to be discussed with trade unions, always in compliance with local legislation.

Three months ago, the Unicredit EWC signed a Joint Statement on remote work, another result of our successful collaboration.

The next years after the pandemic – which hopefully will end soon – will be full of challenges for all of us, management and trade unions alike. We can only meet these challenges together, by being on the same side.

At such a difficult time, confrontation risks generating no added value for our colleagues. Traditionally, the Unicredit group has been favourable and open to debate, to constructive dialogue, and even to productive disputes, but always looking for a shared solution for the good of our employees.

Considering all the Joint Statements signed between 2008 and 2020, the history of our EWC demonstrates how proactive it has been and how the Unicredit management has invested and believed in the functioning of the European Works Council.

I would also like to mention the GFA signed with UNI. The discussion took years, but it led to the signature of one of the very few Global Framework Agreements existing in Italy and abroad. I really hope that other multinationals will follow the same road.

The challenges ahead of us mainly pertain to sustainability. We must understand how the model will evolve. And let me say once again that the best way to do so is together with trade unions.

In this regard, confrontation risks generating no added value for our colleagues, unless in the case of a constructive exchange for the drawing up of an agreement.

I use to tell Unicredit colleagues from the trade unions that it does not make sense to sign an agreement if it does not generate any added value for our colleagues – the resources we are all interested in.

In the last 15 years, the recent history of our EWC goes exactly in this direction. To reply to Mario’s question, we are happy and satisfied with the way the Unicredit EWC has functioned so far.

But we cannot stop here. In the future, we need to be even more determined and practical. To reply to Mario’s question, I think that, in order to improve their functioning, EWCs must be more proactive and bolder. They must discuss topics without necessarily prevailing over national negotiations, but they should ensure a consistent strategy across countries and guarantee the implementation of equitable agreements everywhere.

We are happy with the relations we have with the EWC of the Unicredit group and we hope that this will be the case in the future as well. We also hope that the EWC will sometimes have the courage to face issues which do not affect the local level, which is where we need to continue to make negotiations and agreements with trade unions.

We have the utmost respect for national prerogatives and for each stakeholder.

Thank you, Mario.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Emanuele Recchia. I would like to ask Giancarlo Ferrara from the Italian Banking Federation the same question I addressed to Jens Thau. We identified two points of agreement during our previous meetings between trade unions and employers’ representatives.

They are the following:

EU Directives on employee involvement also need to take into account recent changes. Therefore, it is necessary to update the current regulatory framework to ensure that social dialogue keeps playing its crucial role in all EU Member States.

The definitions of information and consultation are different and inconsistent from one Directive to another. Therefore, we need them to be re-written or amended in order to make these definitions more uniform and rational. In this way, in all the EU Member States represented within a transnational group, social dialogue can take place in a legally consistent framework and with clear definitions of the available tools and of the common objectives to be pursued by the social partners.

I would like to ask Giancarlo Ferrara if he agrees on these two points and if he can envisage working together with us, the representatives of trade unions and EWCs, in order to develop them.

GIANCARLO FERRARA – BANKING COMMITTEE OF EBF – ITALIAN BANKING FEDERATION

Thank you, Mario. First of all, I would like to greet all the colleagues who are online and I really hope to be able to meet them in person as soon as possible.

I would like to thank FISAC for inviting me to this round table and I would like to thank you, Mario. As you know, we have followed all the stages of the Project, which I think is very interesting.

The first aspect I would like to underline is the importance of EWCs in conveying group values across companies which have acquired a common culture across different EU Member States. Employees have also greatly benefited from the exchange of information across different countries and I believe that this is the primary added value of the introduction of EWCs.

EWCs are certainly affected by the many different systems of industrial relations existing across different Member States. Consultation procedures also vary considerably from one country to the other. For instance, in some countries collective bargaining agreements and company-wide agreements do not exist. All this should be taken into account in a complex framework like the one of EWCs.

Another important aspect is to acknowledge that EWCs are not a negotiating body. This is very clear to all of us. But EWCs can generate a virtuous circle, as in the case of the Joint Statements – above all the ones of the Unicredit EWC – which are transposed into national collective bargaining agreements. European social dialogue, which is also based on non-binding joint statements, also promotes good-quality relations and plays a very important role.

As Mr. Recchia correctly pointed out, dialogue should be on a continuous basis and the Italian Banking Federation has invested a lot in European social dialogue. We have had an intensive exchange for years. This has led to the signature of several joint statements, some of which have also been integrated in the national collective bargaining agreement, e.g. the ones on continuing professional education and on corporate social responsibility.

This proves the importance which these topics have for us.

I will speak more in my capacity as member of the Banking Committee of the European Banking Federation then as representative of the Italian Banking Association. Indeed, we have a European approach and I have been involved in social dialogue for 20 years now. Together with Jens and several union representatives who are here with us, we have often discussed delicate issues. Yet, after long negotiations, we have always been able to find a win-win solution for both parties.

To reply to Mario’s question, I would not say that the Directives on information and consultation need to be rewritten. There are a lot of Directives, with different scopes of application. I would rather say that it is necessary to rationalize information and consultation procedures at the European level.

This should probably lead to the rationalization of the whole system. As a result of rationalization, we could have less detailed and less contextualized, but more effective procedures.

With regard to new scenarios, they are certainly the basic aspect of what we are talking about here.

It is hard to imagine future scenarios. The COVID-19 emergency is a key factor for the redefinition of labour relations.

At present, the only thing I can say is that the channel for dialogue has been reinforced, especially at the European level. This is something we can further improve already in the coming months. I found the Joint Statement on telework adopted by the Unicredit group very interesting. This is also a topic we need to discuss and work on.

In my opinion, all that we have done so far can be very useful. As Jens said, I think that the debate we have launched can be integrated in European social dialogue. I think this would be the best framework for this kind of discussion with the three employers’ associations which represent the European finance industry, with the Savings Bank Federation, the Cooperative Bank Federation and UNI Europa.

A day of discussion and in-depth analysis would be very useful, starting from all the material produced by this Project run by FISAC and from the points raised by professor Dorssemont.

I will stop here for now.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Giancarlo. The next question is for Angelo Di Cristo, Head of UNI Finance. Here is my first question for you:

With respect to your dialogue, collaboration with and support to unions affiliated with UNI in the framework of transnational groups, could you briefly tell us what our strengths are? And what are the critical aspects we need to work on and overcome? What can you tell us about our experience so far with Global Framework Agreements and the renegotiation of EWC agreements?

ANGELO DI CRISTO – UNI FINANCE

Thank you, Mario. I would like to thank FISAC-CGIL, in particular its Secretary-General, Nino Baseotto, the national secretariat, and the Head of the international Department, Claudio Cornelli. I would also like to greet all the participants in this interesting conference. I would like to say hello to Emanuele. We had some labour disputes with him, but we also collaborated for the GFA of Unicredit, the only Italian bank to have this kind of instrument.

I would like to say hello to Jens, President of the Committee for Social Affairs of the EBF, and Giancarlo Ferrara. We have been in touch and faced common issues together for many years now.

To come to Mario’s question:

Strengths:

UNI is an international federation which represents national unions at the international level. As other speakers have already said, for us it is fundamental to have relations with large multinationals of the various sectors. In this case, I am obviously talking about UNI Global.

In recent years, in the finance sector, we have drawn up global agreements with the main multinational groups.

Mr. Recchia mentioned the Unicredit one, but I would like to add the ones with BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, ABN Amro, just to mention a few in Europe, and the agreements with Banco ITAU and Banco do Brasil in the Americas.

The signature of these Global Framework Agreements is fundamental for national trade unions, as it gives us the opportunity to negotiate national agreements on the topics covered by the GFAs.

For instance, I am proud of having negotiated, together with the other Italian trade unions, the Protocol on the responsible sale of financial products with Unicredit, back when I was the union coordinator in the company. That negotiation, which ended in 2016, was a pioneering effort, but the topic was later included in the national collective bargaining agreement and, above all, in the global agreement.

Unfortunately, commercial pressure is still very strong, but the Protocol gives unions the possibility of having an exchange with management on this delicate issue.

The EWC also adopted this instrument through a Joint Statement.

So we were able to take this aspect to the European level. We did the opposite of what Giancarlo said. Instead of starting from European social dialogue to go down to national or company-level collective bargaining, we started from the latter and two years ago we got the issue on the agenda of the banking committee for social dialogue. Together with the three employers’ federations of the finance industry, we were then able to sign a Joint Statement on this topic.

Our European federation creates several instruments. Of course, the employers’ associations must be willing to accept them. And the trade unions must be willing to engage more regularly in these international initiatives.

What do I mean by that?

As Jens and Giancarlo know very well, we adopted a lot of Joint Statements at the European level. I am proud to say that, immediately after the outbreak of the pandemic, we worked with all the European employers’ associations of the finance industry, including insurance companies (it is important to underscore it) and on 30 March 2020 we signed a Joint Statement on the management of the pandemic.

This demonstrates once and for all that European trade unions reacted very quickly. I must also give credit to the employers for acknowledging this need and for signing the Joint Statement.

However, in order to be effective, Joint Statements must be implemented at the national level.

Giancarlo mentioned the European statement on continuing professional education. Signed more than 15 years ago, it was later integrated in the Italian national collective bargaining agreement. Only Denmark did the same.

I think that, if they deem it appropriate, our affiliated trade unions should make the most of European and international achievements.

They should not be afraid of an intrusion by the European or international federations. We work at the international level. We are not interested in bargaining and negotiating at the national level. We clearly want negotiations to be in place, but we have no interest in intruding into the national level.

Unfortunately, this happens with some EWCs.

As Giancarlo pointed out, I also think that EWCs are not negotiating bodies. They are information and consultation bodies. I quite agree that improvements must be made in this regard.

EWCs can act as an incentive for collective bargaining and for the negotiations of trade unions at the national level. For instance, Emanuele earlier mentioned the Joint Statements approved by the Unicredit EWC, which later served as an inspiration for national collective bargaining. This can be one of the benefits of EWCs.

Unfortunately, in Europe there are some EWCs which do not act in the same way. They are the EWCs where the presence of trade unions is not welcome or insufficient.

Trade unions need to make investments to improve the situation. They need to invest in the training of union representatives within EWCs, because EWCs are an essential source of information. In the European Works Councils where trade unions are present, UNI Europa has a representative who acts as expert/coordinator. This helps us collect information on industry trends. At the European level, we have the social committee for the banking and insurance sector.

It is an important, even essential body. In recent years it has drawn up valuable Joint Statements on real issues. But also the information we collect from our experts in EWCs is valuable. However, we sometimes notice that this is not considered as a priority by trade unions, but it should be.

Together with the European Trade Union Confederation, our European federation organizes training courses for EWC representatives. I think it is important for our affiliates to develop their knowledge and skills. In Europe the situation is very straightforward. Regulators are no longer at the national level, but at the international, European level. As a consequence, it is now essential for our affiliates to invest in their participation in European-level discussions.

It is also fundamental to develop our organization and to become more effective at the international and European levels. If trade unions believe in this, we grow stronger.

Just to give you an example, in order to sign the global agreement with Unicredit mentioned earlier by Emanuele, it took us 10 years – no kidding.

I am really proud of it, because I was an employee of Unicredit, and I was also the president of its EWC. So I was really proud when we were finally able to sign a Global Framework Agreement.

But why did it take us 10 years?

I do not want to blame anyone. Trade unions also made mistakes: we made one step forward and three backward. But this is now part of the past. I hope that this will no longer happen in the future, because there are many other companies in the finance industry in Europe and around the world which need these agreements.

Many of us take it for granted that everyone has the same rights we have.

I actually believe that there are more people without rights than people with rights. Even within the European Union, there are some problems in some countries, such as Slovakia. This problem was brought to the attention of social dialogue in the finance industry, as well as to the companies which created the situation.

Unfortunately, Slovakia did not make any steps forward, but it actually took a backward step. In Slovakia, all the companies of the banking sector – I am not accusing one in particular – decided to put an end to industry-wide national collective bargaining.

This happened five years ago and I am really sorry about that. We made a campaign to raise awareness of the issue. Unfortunately, our campaign has not yet borne fruit, but we keep on supporting the Slovakian trade unions and we will not forget this problem.

I hope that in the future we will be able to reopen negotiations and to conclude the national collective bargaining process.

On the other hand, there are some good news. For instance, Romania adopted industry-wide collective bargaining and the first industry-wide national agreement was signed 2 or 3 years ago.

This means that trade unions and employers’ associations agreed to have a national collective bargaining agreement in the finance industry for the first time in the history of Romania.

But it has not been all plain sailing. For instance, most finance industry employees have no contractual coverage – hence no rights – because either legislation or undertakings do not allow the trade unions to have rights.

This happens in the United States. With all due respect, I am not talking about states like Burundi or Nepal, where collective bargaining actually exists.

We have a lot to do together. With the experience acquired over the years, Europe can be a driving force, but it must be aware of the need to do more.

Unfortunately, when I make reference to Europe, I am referring to negative practices used by European undertakings outside Europe.

There are very serious situations caused by the behaviour of European companies outside the EU. Since we have repeatedly underlined the importance of social dialogue, I urge the European legislator to bind European undertakings to apply European standards everywhere in the world. European companies cannot be left free to ignore European social standards, which are a fundamental achievement and strength of the European Union, outside the EU.

I will stop here for now.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Angelo. You say you have replied to both questions, but I may get back to you to ask you to integrate your answer to the second question.

Now I would like to ask Susanna Camusso, who I see online, two questions concerning her role within CGIL. Susanna Camusso, formerly Secretary-General of CGIL, now serves as Head of International Policies.

From your observatory at CGIL you can have an overview of all sectors – not just of the banking industry – so I would like to ask you the following question:

How do you assess the quality of social dialogue, of information and consultation in transnational groups and in the EWCs of the various sectors? I ask you this question also thinking about the general speed of change I mentioned earlier, which poses significant challenges to the effectiveness of workers’ representation bodies in transnational groups (like EWCs).

SUSANNA CAMUSSO – HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL POLICIES FOR CGIL

Good morning, everybody and thank you for inviting me. I think the results of this Project are very important. Later on I will go back to some of the things mentioned by Angelo. I must say that the banking sector is not necessarily representative of the functioning of EWCs in all European sectors.

As usual, when you make an overview, you find all sorts of situations. There are undertakings where we cannot even create EWCs because they are not owned by European entities (we cannot forget them). In other cases, the EWCs cannot perform their basic tasks – established in the Directives – of information, consultation and early discussion of business reorganization projects.

This does not discourage us. EWCs remain an essential instrument. It is true that they are not a negotiating body, but I firmly believe that collective bargaining is part of our activities, which should acquire a more European and less national dimension. For the moment, this may sound utopian, but we should take it as an objective.

Together with the other major Italian trade union confederations (CISL and UIL), CGIL is not only supporting the training of EWC delegates through the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI). As our friends from FISAC Claudio and Annamaria can confirm, we are also promoting the exchange of views and experiences within EWCs and among EWCs of different sectors, in order to collect best practices across Europe and to establish relations between the European and the national dimension.

This is true for EWCs, but also for the international agreements signed in the various sectors. As Angelo pointed out, the national trade unions affiliated with the European federations must increase their participation at the international level. But affiliates also need to improve their knowledge. This is why best practices are such an important element. They show what can be achieved and your sector has set several positive examples.

The situation is a bit more complex for social dialogue. I have just heard that the EBF is very open to dialogue. However, I must admit that we have a negative opinion of the employers’ attitude in social dialogue.

Let me give you two examples. As you know, in European social dialogue there can be tripartite dialogue, but also bilateral dialogue. In case an agreement is reached, the latter can lead to the elaboration of Directives.

However, this has not been possible for too many years.

There have also been problems with the implementation of previous agreements. For instance, it took Italy 12 years to implement the Bilateral Agreement on sexual harassment and violence in the workplace. The same is now happening for the agreement on digital work.

There has been a slowing down in the effectiveness of social dialogue in redefining rules that are useful for collective bargaining in all countries.

Yet, the latter is a fundamental instrument. As other speakers said, collective bargaining does not exist in all countries, especially industry-wide collective bargaining.

In some countries, collective bargaining only occurs at the company level. In others, there are practical obstacles both to the free organization of trade unions and to collective bargaining. An example is the current discussion on the Directive on minimum wages and collective bargaining. In this case, the employers’ associations replied negatively to all proposals for the introduction of a Directive and of rules to support collective bargaining in the EU Member States.

We have to take this into account. In any process to negotiate possible advancements, we have to deal with the actual situation, which, in my opinion, is currently not very advanced.

We have an opportunity.

As it took over the six-months’ rotating presidency of the EU Council, Portugal announced that the Pillar of Social Rights would be one of its top priorities. In this regard, as European trade unions, we will raise all the topics concerning collective bargaining and the improvement of working conditions. I think we really need to engage at the European level, in order for the social pillar to be truly implemented and not just remain a declaration of intent.

While we certainly have a very broad work programme, the quality of social dialogue is not always adequate. I am referring in particular to bilateral dialogue (the discussion and negotiation of the new social dialogue work programme will start in June).

However, the general attitude does not seem in favour of introducing regulations and agreements, and of promoting collective bargaining and dialogue in all European countries.

In my opinion, this is even more of an issue now that organizational change has accelerated and that the impact of digital technologies has exploded because of the pandemic.

For instance, there are sectors in which we have been able to make progress in the field of health and safety during COVID-19, and others in which this has not been possible.

Even when faced with emergencies, differences remain. In this respect, it is absolutely necessary to find and propose national solutions to the countries which encounter more difficulties with collective bargaining and to provide instruments to address changes. I am thinking of aspects like training and discussion on new technologies. FISAC knows them because they are covered by national agreements, but this is not the case everywhere in the world.

We are facing together the same challenge. This challenge concerns part of the Directives, which are now being openly debated. We must bear in mind that our goal is necessarily the generalization of industry-wide collective bargaining across Europe. This is the only possible way to introduce elements of European collective bargaining. Indeed, the European dimension should not be seen as an interference in the national one, but as an opportunity to fully implement the same social standards across Europe.

Thank you, Mario.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you very much, Susanna. My second question to you will get more into the details, as I would like to further examine a very complex – to say the least – situation, which represents a major challenge for all trade unions.

Now I would like to go back to Emanuele Recchia and ask him the same question I asked to Jens Thau and Giancarlo Ferrara. I would like to hear his point of view in his capacity as the manager of a multinational company which is represented in this Project.

We have identified two points of agreement on the topics we have addressed as trade unions and as CGIL during this Project. Since our October meeting, we have discussed with employers’ representatives and I would like to thank in particular Monica Carta from Unicredit for making an interesting and very stimulating contribution to our discussion.

My question has partly been inspired by some of the considerations which Monica Carta made in October.

These are, in our opinion, the two points we can agree on:

EU Directives on employee involvement also need to take into account recent changes. Therefore, it is necessary to update the current regulatory framework to ensure that social dialogue keeps playing its crucial role in all EU Member States.

The definitions of information and consultation are different and inconsistent from one Directive to another. Therefore, we need them to be re-written or amended in order to make these definitions more uniform and rational. In this way, in all the EU Member States represented within a transnational group, social dialogue can take place in a legally consistent framework and with clear definitions of the available tools and of the common objectives to be pursued by the social partners. Furthermore, the information and consultation instruments need to be the same for everyone.

EMANUELE RECCHIA

Thank you, Mario. Addressing change, especially now that we are facing an emergency, is a priority. It is a matter of subsistence, of survival. Therefore, we believe that the possibility and the need for European Directives to address changes is essential.

Let me go back to the central role of industrial relations with the European Works Council of Unicredit. Their central role is a starting point and it establishes a framework of rules and guarantees that can be useful for all trade unions within Unicredit, anywhere they are.

Angelo Di Cristo earlier mentioned the case of Slovakia, which I am fully aware of.

We are one of the many Slovak banks and we play a role in Slovakia, where the model of collective bargaining and industrial relations has ceased to exist. As Unicredit, we had a duty to maintain collective bargaining within our company.

Only those who work with me, in my team, know how many times I called the HR office in Slovakia to ask and encourage them to reach an agreement. Even if collective bargaining had failed at the national level, we wanted to preserve it at the company level.

All this has always been done in the framework of the guarantees provided to all the Unicredit group employees by the 5 Joint Statements signed in the last 14 years and by the Global Framework Agreement.

So the central role of social dialogue is not an end in itself, but it is aimed at ensuring a framework of guarantees in industrial relations. Industrial relations then have different nuances in the various states. They may be more or less advanced depending on the maturity of the socio-economic context where we work.

The Unicredit group is one of the largest banks in Italy, Germany and Austria, but also in Russia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Therefore, as a group we have to deal with very different trade unions and labour situations. The degree of maturity of industrial relations also varies greatly between Western European countries and Eastern European countries, where the tradition is less strong, less rooted and more recent.

So for us the central role of the EWC helps ensure a number of guarantees.

Those who know our group, like Angelo Di Cristo, know that, during my tenure as Head of Industrial Relations of the Unicredit group, the Joint Statements have always been signed by our CEOs.

Even if I have the power to sign this kind of statements on behalf of the group, we have always wanted not only to keep our CEOs informed of everything, but also to directly involve them. And I must say that our CEOs have always been very committed.

Those who know Jean-Pierre Mustier and Federico Ghizzoni know that they do not do anything if they are not 100% convinced. They wanted to get personally involved and to sign the statements to give tangible proof of the importance of Joint Statements for the Unicredit group.

To go back to the issue of change, I would like to say that we cannot follow change.

If you follow change, it basically means that you are already late.

It is true that there are different phases and different intensities of change, but it is our duty to manage it, especially in a very traditional context like the finance industry. In the last 10 years, we have governed strategic repositioning processes and we have dealt with the need to combine tradition and physical presence on the one hand with the increasingly remote nature of distribution channels on the other.

We should neither follow nor be overwhelmed by change. Change must necessarily be governed together by employees and trade unions.

Especially when dealing with change, which traditionally occurs more quickly than expected, if industrial relations are conflictual, they can only have negative and detrimental effects.

Therefore, in our opinion it is really essential to manage change and to have European Directives that allow us to regulate and govern it.

Susanna Camusso earlier talked about best practices and said that the knowledge of affiliated unions needs to be improved. I completely agree with her. In my capacity as Head of Industrial Relations of the Unicredit group, my dream in relation to EWCs would be to create a network of EWCs, not only from the finance industry, but also from other sectors, and with the participation of employers’ representatives.

I am a curious person and in the last six years I decided to invite to the biannual plenary meetings of the Unicredit EWC several representatives from the EWCs of other major European financial companies, namely some of the largest European banks.

To be honest, I encountered huge difficulties. The first problem was identifying EWCs that were truly functioning – not just merely a cosmetic exercise – and that had signed in recent years some Joint Statements. This was a major obstacle.

The second problem was the lack of interest of other EWCs – which are often less active than expected – in exchanging best practices and information and in learning from each other.

To quote Susanna Camusso, I think that a best practice would be to create a network of best practices, i.e. a network where the major financial companies can share their results and learn from each other. In this network, trade unions would exchange views not only with an individual company’s management, but with several other trade unions and employers. I think this would be an important opportunity of growth.

To come to your question, Mario, we think that European Directives on employee involvement must necessarily adapt to change. But two things are needed.

Firstly, rationalization. The proliferation of rules does not lead to certainty and to a clear framework of reference. This is why it is important not to draft too many European Directives. There should only be few well-done Directives that clearly establish a framework of reference.

The rules must necessarily allow the stakeholders to act in relation to the specificities of the business context.

I truly hope that European Directives can lay the foundations to manage change together.

Before concluding, I would like to go back to what Mario said about the physical relocation of workforce.

As I have already told you, three months ago we signed a Joint Statement on remote work. I think it was one of the first of its kind in Europe. So why should the European Directives help us to improve clarity and dialogue?

Because – this is our common position – no one expects Unicredit to revolutionize work organization in the future. After the pandemic, there will probably be an evolution of work organization. I say an evolution – not a revolution – which should benefit everyone, employees and clients alike.

The situation we are currently experiencing has been imposed on us by the crisis and by the emergency. When the pandemic is – at long last – over, we will no longer be the same. It is not just a saying.

At the same time, for instance, in the banking industry we expect an evolution towards a better and stronger integration of on-site work with remote work.

This is the future model on which all companies, including Unicredit, are working. We are beginning to plan the work organization of the future. This is a spontaneous change which will not be imposed on employees. On the contrary, they will play an active and positive role in it.

In order to turn this change into a positive evolution, we obviously need trade unions and employers to have an open dialogue, with clear rules which ensure mutual respect.

Thank you.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Emanuele. I would like to make a brief remark.

When we propose to rewrite or rationalize European Directives, we do not want to further complicate or enrich the existing legislation to make it longer, more complex and more detailed. Not at all!

We want European Directives that help information and consultation bodies to be effective, that have clear and easy-to-interpret rules, and that are not difficult or require a long time to interpret them.

We welcome simplification, provided that it does not weaken the rights, procedures and guarantees of employees and those who represent them in information and consultation bodies.

So I think we agree on this, as well as on the need to absolutely and clearly distinguish between transnational information and consultation and collective bargaining.

We have always very openly stated that the two dimensions – collective bargaining on the one hand and consultation on the other – should integrate each other, but also that there should be clearly distinct roles and possibly different people involved.

The most important thing is that EWCs do not engage in activities they are not entitled to perform. EWCs should not engage in collective bargaining. They must be good at collecting information and at making consultation effective. This is what EWCs should do. They should not be involved in activities they were not supposed to perform when they were created.

I am not saying it to argue with you, but just to clarify what our point of view is.

Now I would like to get a bit more into the details and ask Jens Thau a more specific question.

We have made you two proposals, summarized in the “4 key points” and in the “13 proposals”, and we have started an exchange of views on them.

On which points can we agree to write together a joint document as a result of this European Project? This joint document would be a fitting example of the remarkable cooperation and dialogue we have had during the Project.

This question is also connected to a possible path of dialogue (which we imagined together last October), on which we could embark soon after the end of this European Project. UNI Finance and the European Banking Federation could start to reflect together on these proposals – of course also with your industry partners in Europe – and later try to involve as well other sectors under the UNI umbrella. Thank you.

JENS THAU

Thank you for your question, Mario. In a moment I will also talk about a future road map in relation to the 4 key points and the 13 proposals.

But I would like to go back to what you and Angelo said. It is a pleasure to see that we are all here. But like everyone else, I hope that this situation will end soon and that we will be able to meet in person.

Emanuele said: “Let’s not do the revolution, but an evolution.” I agree, but we should bear in mind that evolution is not linear, but exponential.

This is true for the banking sector, in which technology is driving an exponential evolution. It is important to understand that, for the human brain, it is quite difficult to handle this pace. Not only is change quick, but there are also multiple simultaneous changes and the impact of artificial intelligence makes everything more problematic.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) will implement its own programmes. We are no longer talking about what surrounds us, a world that we like. We are talking about something that is no longer physically around us. The real issue for all of us is that, in order for EWCs to generate an added value, we need to exchange information and views on what happens around us. All this is fundamental to understand what is actually going on.

Then there is the issue of the competence level.

In Germany there are Betriebsraete (Works Councils) at the employee level, at the company level and even at the group level. And now, with the EWC, there is also the European level. So who is responsible for what? This question is in the DNA of all those that use this instrument in their working life.

The real issue is not whether employee involvement occurs, but what the right level of consultation is.

As I have said earlier, Germany adopts the principle of subsidiarity. If something can be done at a lower level, this should be the level of consultation. If something must be done at a higher level, then this is the level of consultation.

This means that there must be a clear separation between the competence levels.

Having four different levels to discuss the same issue is not only inefficient – we are not talking about efficiency here – but it does not even ensure a concerted procedure. The result is a cacophony of voices, with no one knowing what to do.

Therefore, as other speakers said, we must clearly distinguish consultation in EWCs from collective bargaining. I am happy to hear that we all agree on this, because this is an extremely important point.

But we need to more specifically define the level at which the EWCs can play a role that others cannot play, especially when changes occur within a group.

EWCs are obviously a competent body. However, we must bear in mind that things have changed. In the past, decisions were made by the management and then implemented in a top-down approach. Nowadays, many of the decisions are actually made by clients, who no longer come to the office because they use a smartphone. This is not a decision of the management, but an external factor. Yet, it is something that we – both employees and managers – have to react to.

Whatever the level of consultation, we must bear in mind another important thing. The cases in which the decision is made at the highest level and implemented in a top-down approach are now limited to very few strategic and structural decisions.

The vast majority of decisions, even the most general ones, are not implemented in a top-down approach, but in a bottom-up approach, as a result of the work of employees involved in planning and HR management. The idea of a distant body that makes decisions does not help us understand where added value is generated. To come to your questions, the idea of a constant debate is another point that we must take into consideration.

We simply have to align consultation with the actual new decision-making centres. This is something we must clearly understand.

And this is why what Emanuele said about best practices is so important. We should create a sort of market where we can buy ideas on how to manage problems. This exchange will become very important within a works council, between employers and employees, but also among the various local works councils, within the EWC and among employees at all levels. It will clearly be important also in the context of collective bargaining and social dialogue.

With respect to the points raised, as I have already said, we believe that responsibility should lie with the partners who decide and promote consultation. So we need to build a context that works at the level of the company, of the EWC, etc.

This is one of the most important topics, which also plays a role at the procedural level.

We all agree that the right to information should go hand-in-hand with the right to exchange opinions – defined as the right to consultation – and that the opposite party should reflect on these opinions. This is obviously another role. Indeed, if we want our ideas to be taken into consideration, this means that the decision should not be definitive. Consultations should be taken into consideration.

Any consultation required by the Directive also requires an earlier phase. It is not just a matter of receiving information on a given problem. There is also the time dimension. This means that information should be provided before decisions are already made. Opinions must have the opportunity to influence the decision. So it is a matter of what comes before and after.

This approach should not be limited to the business plan or other plans. It becomes an actual requirement for the full implementation of the concept of consultation. It is not an issue of substance. It is about the way in which consultation should be managed and defined. This is something that concerns everything.

The last time I was in Rome we talked about the issue of confidentiality. I see that you addressed this topic also in the 4 key points which you sent me. The obligation of confidentiality should obviously be maintained. Otherwise, there could be no significant exchange. Without confidentiality, consultation cannot occur.

Building trust is a really important point. We have said that this means building rules autonomously. By building rules and by incorporating them in the procedure, we can build trust. This is why enforcing rules is essential.

I am not thinking of violations to the rules established by the legislator. Rather, the two parties should commit themselves to building the context of consultation in such a way to build trust. Without trust, consultation will never be ideal.

Because of our idea of consultation, we think that, if consultation – at any level – is predefined, it is hard to establish a method to make decisions and implement them.

This is what we have clearly said about the definition of our role, whether it is in a supervisory board or in a works council. The roles are simply different and we cannot use the methods typical of corporate management when we speak of consultation.

We have to make very clear distinctions of the roles. This is our position with respect to the points raised.

In conclusion, this is the plan for the future.

We need to have a constant exchange at the various levels. As I said, and as is demonstrated by our debate, this Project is a wonderful opportunity for exchange. Of course, we can continue our discussion and get more and more into the details. We have been talking about these issues for eight years through the various Projects. We now need to make concrete steps forward on the fundamental issues. We need to gain more freedom in relation to the decision-making procedures. And we need to discuss how we can implement these ideas through Directives, which in the future will hopefully be more consistent and contain fewer contradictions.

Thank you to the interpreters who help me understand Italian.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Jens. Yours was a very structured and precise answer.

Starting from some of your considerations, I would like to say that consultation should also have the power to influence the final decision. Of course, it has its limits and its task should not be confused with others. However, it plays an important role, which must be enhanced, developed and supported also through effective and efficient legal tools.

Now I would like to ask the same question to Angelo Di Cristo.

ANGELO DI CRISTO

With regard to the elaboration of a joint document at the end of this Project, I agree with what Giancarlo said when he replied to the first question.

It is appropriate for FISAC-CGIL to draw its conclusions. But in October we said that this Project could be the starting point for a collaboration between UNI Europa Finance and employers’ representatives, including the insurance sector (there are many examples of EWCs in insurance companies). The goal of this collaboration would be for UNI to organize a conference on this topic by the end of 2021.

During this conference, trade unions and employers’ associations would openly discuss the strengths, weaknesses and problems which the Directive of 2009 creates in the functioning of EWCs.

For instance, I have been saying for years that involving trade unions only in the setting up of European Works Councils is a strong limitation. At present, the term “trade unions” immediately disappears after the creation of the EWC and only the general term “employees’ representative” is used.

In Italy, when the European Directive was transposed into national law, the legislator established that employees are represented by the trade unions that sign national agreements. However, this is an Italian peculiarity and the situation is not the same in other European countries. In fact, the representation of employees is so diverse across EU Member States that we have to strike the right balance.

UNI Europa Finance is willing to have an open discussion with employees’ representatives on how to possibly improve the Directive. We have to take other stakeholders into account, such as ETUC, Business Europe, UNI Europa and the European employers’ association.

I agree with Susanna that the pandemic has led to the explosion of certain factors which we would have seen at play in a few years. For this reason, on 16 February UNI presented its principles on remote work. If you are interested in reading them, you can find them on the website of UNI Europa. You will see that they insist on one concept: collective bargaining.

Sometimes, we as trade unionists make a mistake, as we speak of remote workers as a separate entity. However, they are simply employees who work in different situations. I do not want to contradict Emanuele or start a dispute here. Dialogue is good, and sometimes you find solutions also through the clash of differing principles between the parties. This is normal.

For us, collective bargaining is fundamental and it should cover remote workers as well. We are concerned about what I would call the “new digital relocation”. In some ways, it reminds me of what happened in the early 2000s, when in our sector – like in others – there was a considerable relocation of activities to other EU Member States.

I am going to be blunt. These relocations occurred because labour costs were a lot lower and, above all, because there were no trade unions and employees were not as organized as in Western Europe.

As Emanuele and I said earlier, in Romania there has been a positive evolution.

When Unicredit relocated its records centre to Romania, workers were not organized there. They later organized themselves and formed a Romanian national union federation. Nowadays, both companies and employees are happy to have an industry-wide national collective bargaining agreement in place.

This gives us reason to hope that the same can happen in other countries as well. It is something that can and must be done. I think that employees have the right to receive guarantees and protections through collective bargaining.

Emanuele mentioned that, in certain cases, other European Works Councils did not generate any added value.

At UNI Finance we have a network of EWC representatives and we meet twice a year. I must say that I have also found some good practices. Without making any ranking, I would say that each EWC has its own peculiarities. The EWC of Unicredit is certainly an active one. Other European Works Councils are “passive”, while others have set some good practices.

I would like to give you one example, which surprised me a lot. The EWC of Santander signed a Joint Statement on the responsible sale of financial products already in 2006. Without blaming anyone in particular, in Italy this only occurred 10 years later, in 2016, at Unicredit.

That was a welcome development anyway!

The EWC of Crédit Agricole has made steps towards a Joint Statement on the protection of employees’ data in relation to digitalization.

This shows that many different achievements are possible.

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform the EBF representatives that tripartite dialogue at the ILO has been officially postponed to 2022. This is a very important moment for our sector.

UNI has asked the ILO secretariat to invite the companies which have signed GFAs with us in order to talk about digitalization. We will certainly address the consequences of the pandemic as well, since the emergency has clearly accelerated digitalization processes and the adoption of remote work.

The future is now. We must be vigilant, because we do not want a fragmentation of employees. Collective bargaining is fundamental for us, as we want to make sure that all employees have the same rights, regardless of where they work, be it at home or in the office.

Let me now come to future steps.

To meet your expectations, Mario, I think that this Project can serve as the starting point to continue the discussion in the framework of social dialogue.

I make this commitment on behalf of UNI Finance and limitedly to our sector. After the conference we would like to organize by the end of 2021, we will see whether other UNI sectors are interested in collaborating. Then, we may have a broader discussion with the other sectors where European Works Councils are also active.

I do not deem it appropriate for now to sign joint documents. What you are working on is a document by FISAC. We will certainly read it very carefully. Since we have participated in this very interesting Project for the past two years, you can rest assured that this is not an empty promise. On behalf of UNI – and I think Jens would do the same on behalf of the EBF – I promise you to engage in a very frank discussion, outside the official European social dialogue with the European Commission. I can tell you that we are ready to very openly discuss any proposal coming from the finance industry and that we are willing to collaborate with UNI Europa on the one hand and with Business Europe, the European Banking Federation and the European Insurance Federation on the other.

Thank you very much and thanks to the interpreters as well.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Angelo for your second answer. I am very glad that you have made this commitment. I know that there is a major difference between a short, generic joint document that is almost bureaucratically presented to the European Commission and a joint path made of an intense and in-depth discussion.

I will get back to this later on. It will be very interesting to listen to what MEP Brando Benifei has to say about the Directives and how to possibly rewrite them.

Now I would like to ask Giancarlo Ferrara the same question I have just asked to Angelo and Jens.

GIANCARLO FERRARA

I will be brief, because much has already been said. I agree to embark on a common path. I think that the biggest merit of this Project is that it has highlighted and summarized a number of considerations on this topic. We are talking about an age-old problem we have discussed for a long time. But it is no surprise, because, as I mentioned earlier, labour relations vary considerably from one situation to the other. That is why we need to reflect very carefully and in-depth on this topic. This is all the more so in the present scenario.

I think that social dialogue in the finance industry is the most appropriate level for this discussion. Indeed, we have mentioned the quality of social dialogue and of course these issues pertain to the banking industry.

I must say that in recent years the social partners have been quite bold, as they have addressed some delicate subjects. I will not make a complete list, but in few years we have approved Joint Statements on continuing professional education, CSR and remote work. The latter is a very relevant topic today and, in the next two years, we will check if this Joint Statement is suitable for the current evolution or if it needs to be updated.

I would also like to mention the Joint Statements on digital work, on new technologies and their impact on employment, and on sales policies. The latter was a major achievement that was inspired by the national agreement signed in February 2017 by the Italian Banking Association and by the trade unions of the finance industry.

This means that best practices spread around in a virtuous circle. Angelo earlier mentioned the Joint Statement with Santander. It being understood that national collective bargaining agreements remain central, I think it demonstrates that the connection of various levels generates cultural change towards a shared European approach.

This is not a secondary topic. During this pandemic, we must assess what cultural and social model Europe promotes in the framework of global competition. This is something in which social dialogue plays an extremely important role.

There is also another factor to be taken into consideration. As a representative of the social partners of the banking industry, I would like to say that there have already been two project phases, Pillar 1 and Pillar 2, on the impact of Community rules on the sector.

The first Pillar was about the monitoring of Community rules for the financial sector to assess their impact on employment levels and the kind of new jobs and new functions they generate.

The second Pillar attempted to rationalize everything. We ask Community institutions to more regularly involve the social partners in the assessment of the impact of legislation.

We are currently experiencing a phase of radical change, but, as Mrs. Camusso said, the pandemic has only accelerated processes that had started years ago. Now we have to rationalize everything, but the process had already started. Nothing is new, except maybe the way we want to face it.

I think we must strive to create a shared culture and shared values at the European level.

This is important because, in my opinion, competition will be fierce, also in our sector. So the social partners must be ready and our dialogue with Community institutions must be strengthened.

With regard to simplification, during our Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 project, we observed that there are a lot of sometimes contradictory rules that are added to national legislation and local collective bargaining. This generates some overlapping that does not help industrial relations.

In conclusion, I definitely welcome the idea of a deep dive into these topics and of a one-day event for an open and frank discussion. I am sure that the results of this Project will be very useful to this purpose. Thank you, Mario.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Giancarlo. I would like to underline your point about the importance of an effective dialogue with Community institutions in order to strengthen our work.

Now I would like to ask my second question to Susanna Camusso, which is somewhat related to this topic. Susanna, what do you think of the two proposals drawn up by FISAC-CGIL with the help of our expert in EU law, professor Filip Dorssemont, who has often collaborated with European trade unions before?

Do you think that our proposals could become an integral part of the discussion and action of the Italian trade union confederations like CGIL and of the ETUC?

SUSANNA CAMUSSO

Thank you, Mario.

As I said earlier, CGIL is already working with CISL and UIL on EWCs and on the Directive. I imagine that FISAC will participate in this activity, which involves all sectors and examines the different issues they may have.

I think it is necessary to “update” the Directive (I will use this term because it is more neutral). I think it is a logical and coherent process. Years of experimentation have demonstrated the effects of the activity, as well as the need to address the changes that have occurred in the meantime.

I believe this should be done in the framework of social dialogue. I do not think it is up to the Commission or the Parliament. I keep on believing that one of the strengths of the European Union is the idea of a supporting legislation, which does not replace nor is imposed on national legislation.

We have to bear in mind that European countries have different problems and different levels of progress and that in the European Union we should strive for convergence. We cannot simply ignore differences and continue the path of the countries which have the most relations or experience.

Otherwise, we are going to repeat the situation which was mentioned earlier, i.e. competition among European countries on the basis of the cost and rights of employees.

This is not the scenario we want. Otherwise, we would not be here to talk about the convergence of salaries, minimum wages, contract models and collective bargaining as general principles of reference.

From this point of view, I think we should all do our best to overcome the stalemate in European social dialogue I described earlier. We cannot simply ask the Commission to solve the situation for us, because I think it would not work.

I would also like to make two observations on the proposals I heard. Part of the logic behind it is that the terminology of the Directives is sometimes contradictory. There is no doubt about it.

This does not only apply to EWCs. I am thinking about all the different terms for parasubordinate and self-employed workers. But we can look at it in a different way. Language has changed over the years because we have faced problems of a different nature and quality.

Together with the legal experts who support us, we also believe that, out of the many existing terminologies, we should try to create a single one of the Commission.

We earlier mentioned that the European Directives generically speak of employee representation bodies. In the framework of European dialogue, this risks being a sort of downgrading in comparison with the role played by trade unions in collective bargaining.

There is also the issue of drawing up the definition of employees. It may sound very easy, because the European Union has traditionally decided to take ILO conventions as a point of reference. However, not all European countries have ratified the same conventions. Therefore, it is definitely necessary to adopt a uniform language. But we need this language to be in line with the changes which were already occurring and which the pandemic has certainly accelerated – also with the introduction of some new elements.

Someone said that it is necessary to work on the Joint Statement and then on the Directive on telework, because they are no longer applicable to the situation we have now. But, above all, we have to deal with new issues, because technologies keep on evolving. While it is easy to agree with employees’ representatives that there needs to be a contract system, it is much more complicated to have a discussion on the definitions of artificial intelligence and learning machines. Yet, the European Union is working on relevant rules and we also need to address this issue. Trade unions need to receive information and gain a better understanding of these technologies. Otherwise, on the one hand we claim the right to information and consultation and the right to collective bargaining, but on the other hand dialogue does not occur because everything is done through technological tools.

So I believe that we must argue that Europe needs a supporting legislation, i.e. legislation that supports collective bargaining, the definition of its various levels, as well as the convergence process we need to build in Europe. We also need to spread knowledge that these issues are also influenced by technological changes and innovations.

Thank you.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Susanna for your well-structured and comprehensive answer.

Now I would like to speak with MEP Brando Benifei, who is following us from Brussels.

In recent years we have already fruitfully collaborated with Brando Benifei on the issues we are addressing during this round table. In particular, we have previously talked about the limits of Directive 2009/38 on EWCs and, more in general, of the Directives on employee involvement.

Brando Benifei has voiced our concerns and launched specific initiatives at the European Parliament and with the European Commission.

This is why we have invited him to this round table. We sincerely thank him for his participation.

In my first question I would like to ask you to tell us your opinion and to update us on the most recent initiatives and on the political conditions which may have influenced the fitness check of the Directives on employee involvement previously launched by the European Commission.

Today, what are the main positions and forces in the European Parliament and in the Commission that may facilitate or block a fitness check aimed at making the Directives more effective?

BRANDO BENIFEI

First of all, let me thank you, Mario, as well as FISAC and UNI Europa for your work in this area. As you said, in recent years we have repeatedly met in person in Rome and in London to talk about these issues, and in particular about the reform of the EWC Directive.

Unfortunately, in the current situation we cannot yet speak of a full-fledged reform. We are still stuck in a preliminary analysis phase about the use, functioning and implementation of European legislation on EWCs.

Let me say it clearly. I fear there is no political will to pass a reform – not only by the Commission, but also by political representatives and employers alike.

I am sorry to say that, because during the latest parliamentary term we waited for the publication by the Commission of the Evaluation on the implementation of the EWC Directive (Recast). The Evaluation was published in 2018, two years behind schedule, under the umbrella of the fitness check of the Directives on employee involvement.

Mario certainly remembers that we submitted a written Question to urge the Commission to publish this Evaluation, which, despite being mandatory, was released very late.

Based on my experience at the European Parliament, especially in relation to many aspects of social and labour policies, I would say that the REFIT evaluation was inspired more by the willingness to reduce the administrative and bureaucratic burden, rather than by the desire to truly assess how to review, improve and strengthen the Directives.

To use some popular terms in Brussels, I would call it deregulation rather than smart regulation.

In the IMCO and JURI Committees we are working on REFIT evaluations and I can confirm you that this is the general trend. Unfortunately, the much awaited Evaluation published in 2018 is proof of that. It is a 10-page report which very briefly analyzes the benefits of EWCs and the need to spread them across EU Member States. Even if it is very short, the evaluation clearly identifies a list of existing problems:

1. Limited number of EWCs in Europe

1. Limited effectiveness of the consultation procedure

1. Need to strengthen the exchange of best practices

1. Serious shortcomings in the implementation of the Directive

Considering all this, I would have reasonably expected a proposal for the revision of the Directive, but this was not the case.

Some suggested creating a Practical Handbook on EWCs to ensure a more effective transposition of the Directive into national law. However, this document has never been drafted and no one knows what the Commission plans to do to ensure the enforcement of commitments in the Member States and to provide additional resources to the social partners for the implementation of EWCs.

In this regard, I think it is worth saying that I successfully negotiated and fought for the inclusion of an obligation for the European Commission to develop capacity-building of social partners in the European Social Fund Plus.

Through this fund, we gave the European Commission an instrument to provide additional resources to the social partners for the implementation of EWCs, as was requested in the Evaluation. Now I truly hope that the Commission will do so and we will certainly monitor the situation.

But I think this is definitely not enough.

I think what we need is a strong political push by the European Parliament and by the national governments.

As Mario Ongaro knows well, I promoted two own-initiative reports on the topic in the EMPL Committee. One was about democracy in the workplace and the other one about the revision of the EWC Directive, for which I will be the rapporteur for the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

In both cases, we are still waiting. Due to COVID-19, the Parliament had to postpone part of the activities of last year, which concerned other things. However, I think that this delay is in part due to the lack of political will – something that deserves an in-depth discussion.

I am insisting to break the deadlock and I will keep you informed.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Brando. I not only appreciate your hard work, but also you being very straightforward. The situation you described is concerning an disappointing. You clearly said that there is no political will to reply to the questions that were raised on the topic. What you say confirms the concerns expressed by professor Dorssemont, our legal expert, when he said: “The fitness check is seen more as a way to deregulate, simplify and eventually weaken legislation, rather than as a way to make it more effective and implement it.”

From this point of view, my second question to you becomes even more important. What do you think of our 4 key points and 13 proposals? Do you have any recommendations? Knowing that we can count on your support for our proposals – especially once we agree on some specific points with our social partners – how can we integrate them in the debate at the European Parliament?

Of course, we do not want to generate confusion between European Social Dialogue, which is run autonomously by the social partners, and the institutional tasks of democratic bodies like the European Parliament and the Commission. However, I think that the two should run in parallel in order to ensure the best functioning of procedures and practices.

BRANDO BENIFEI

With respect to your 4 key points and 13 proposals, I must say that they outline a series of measures that are truly necessary in order for EWCs to be up to current and future challenges.

To be brief, I will focus on a point that I consider truly essential, i.e. information to employees and how to make it effective.

I think we need to lobby some of the main players in the European Parliament, such as Gaby Bischoff, who is a trade unionist, but also Dennis Radtke, who will also be the coordinator for the proposal on minimum wages. In my opinion, this may distract him from his work on the own-initiative report on EWCs.

We also have to start dialogue with the European Trade Union Confederation and with Business Europe in order to avoid polarization and a face-to-face confrontation in view of the parliamentary debate.

At present, the Commission does not seem to be willing to act without a resolute initiative of the European Parliament and of some governments to change the EWC Directive.

Therefore, we need to involve a wide range of political forces and social partners already in the early stages, in order not to end up with a Parliament resolution that is not ambitious enough in asking for a reform.

I mentioned Gaby Bischoff for the report on democracy at work and Dennis Radtke for the own-initiative report because I work closely with them. I have no doubt that they will work hard. I also believe that, without a push by different political forces and without the support of some governments, we risk losing time – which would not be a good thing.

In general, I think that all of your proposals are good. We must strive to include them in the two reports I mentioned, i.e. the one on democracy at work with Gaby Bischoff as rapporteur, and the one on the revision of the EWC Directive, for which I am the rapporteur for the Socialist group. Dennis Radtke is the co-rapporteur, but he also needs to play an active role. Otherwise, this would be the initiative of only one side of the Parliament, which may lead to its failure.

I will work in this direction and I will keep you updated on future developments. I hope I can give you good news in the future.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Brando. I took note of what you said. I was very happy to hear that you confirm your commitment despite the difficult and somewhat discouraging situation. However, we believe that, by bringing together different forces and by looking for the support of the social partners, we have the opportunity and the potential to continue our path and to break the deadlock.

BRANDO BENIFEI

I would like to clarify one thing. I think we can make steps forward through lobbying and actions.

After the very significant delay in the presentation of the Evaluation, together with you, the social partners, we lobbied the Commission, we submitted an informal question and in the end the Commission was forced to act.

I do not know if they would have done it without our lobbying. This is why I was very realistic, maybe even pessimistic. We know who we are dealing with and we definitely need to make pressure. But I firmly believe that, with our work, things can be changed.

MARIO ONGARO

Thank you, Brando for your correction. This is good to hear and it certainly motivates us to continue to work.

We will certainly stay in touch with you to work together on this issue and on other possible fields of collaboration.

Final Goal IX of this Project

Produce a Proposal of EU Policy on 4.0 Finance aiming to:

1. connect effectiveness of EU law on employee involvement with the outcomes and current practices of industrial relations in the industry in terms of changing work processes;

1. use part of productivity increase brought by smart working and digitalization to address resources to LLL and vocational training in order to foster employees skills and the quality and social sustainability of finance products;

1. provide a relevant input to the EU Social Dialogue both at sectoral and general level

This goal IX. has been met essentially through:

1. our 4 points document + the 13 points document that our external Expert wrote taking into punctual account our observations and our priorities

We have proposed both documents to:

1. our social partners (BCESA-EBF + Unicredit Group Industrial Relations and EWC Management

1. Uni Finance

1. EU Parl. member in charge of Employment Committee

Our social partners find both documents very interesting and consider them a solid basis on which a follow-up should be framed in the Banking EU Social Dialogue, in parallel with the already planned agenda for 2021-2022.

Uni Finance completely share both documents and fully support the follow-up proposed by our social partners here above

MEP Brando Benifei is working on the Directives on Employee Involvement (namely the 2009/38 one) together with Dennis Radtke and Gaby Bishoff, both MEP on the dossier concerning proposals to review the a.m. Directive I, as Project Manager, am personally in steady contact with the a.m.MEP Benifei, in order to coordinate any further outcome that our work with our social partners will produce

1. Foreword

2. The framework of our seminar in Sofia

3. This EU Project in its route and goals

4. Two goals of the project to be attained with the support of our external expert prof. Filip Dorssemont

5. FIRST PLENARY WORKSHOP Belgrade, 19-20-21 June 2019

6. Again on the fitness check

7. Goal VI of this Project

8. Goal V of this Project

9. State of play and follow-up Rome, 13-14-15.11.2019

10. INTRODUCTORY REPORT - Rome, 13th November 2019

11. 13 proposals for the revision of the  Directives to improve employee involvement

12. Questions for the round table of friday

13. MEP Brando Benifei about Dorssemont’s 13 points

14. Our proposal for a revision of the EWC Directive

15. Overview of developments within the EWCs and within the Intesa Sanpaolo Group

16. The experiences of two workers representative of industry 4.0 change and of their direct trade union representatives

17. The stories we heard on 7 October 2020 and the analysis of the questionnaires filled out by a sample of workers of the 4.0 segment

18. Our dialogue with management representatives

19. Future prospects and credits

20. Introduction

21. AGOSTINO MEGALE • Introductory Report at the Final Conference  24ᵗʰ February 2021

22. On 24 February

23. The experiences of EWCs and transnational groups through the three questions which I asked them:

24. Second Session • 25.02.2021

25. Given the stand-by situation in terms of the EWC to be set up, we want to stress this crucial political issue through the contribution by Elena Cherubini

26. The Final Round Table: the speed of change and the european directives on employee involvement