BCC bank staff: calling for a pay rise of 518 euros, a 35-hour working week and one extra day’s holiday

Among other things, the trade unions are calling for an increase in the number of seniority increments, raising the number recognised for Professional Categories and 1st and 2nd-level managerial staff from the current 8 to 12, and from 7 to 9 for 3rd and 4th-level managerial staff. This is also intended to address the trend towards a longer working life.

According to the trade unions, all these demands are justified by the figures from recent years – and those for 2025 in particular – which show growth in lending and deposits, as well as particularly high capital levels (CET1 at 29.3 per cent), demonstrating the resilience and soundness of the cooperative model.

As regards the volume of credit granted, the BCCs have a market share of 24.4 per cent of businesses. The BCCs’ provision of consumer credit to households has also exceeded the banking system average in recent years.

As Fabi’s national secretary, Luca Bertinotti, explains, the platform contains ‘all the economic and regulatory aspects that are useful and necessary for building a future of job security, professional development and the restoration of purchasing power within the cooperative credit sector’. Particular attention has been paid “to welfare, organisational wellbeing, work-life balance and continuous professional development”, continues Bertinotti.

Digitalisation and technological innovation, as can be read between the lines of the document, will necessitate a review of job classifications and career paths, which will be defined in greater detail. As has happened within the Italian Banking Association (ABI) with its digital steering committee, Bertinotti points out that within the Cooperative Credit Banks (BCC) too, ‘it will be necessary to establish a national, permanent and bilateral body to address and manage all the challenges of the future, with a view to ensuring job stability and the sustainable professional development of all staff in the sector’.

The national secretary of First Cisl, Domenico Iodice, adds that ‘the transformation brought about by AI offers a historic opportunity for bold investment in employment and in original, distinctive, genuinely cooperative technology: technology that serves people and local communities, without replacing jobs. We need a shared approach to setting out guidelines and objectives, and the bilateral steering group overseeing the ongoing processes of change is the right solution’.

Moreover, Iodice continues, “even the further demands regarding reduction in weekly working hours, strengthening of welfare provisions, combating commercial pressures, and trade union participation in sustainability reporting are all inspired by the aim of elevating the status of work and serve to gauge the social responsibility and effectiveness of cooperative banks’.

“It is a forward-looking proposal, designed to manage the changes currently taking place and to recognise the value of existing work and professional skills,” says Giovanni Gianninoto of Uilca. “At a time when technological evolution is profoundly transforming the organisational and operational models of the world of work, the aim is to ensure that technological innovation serves as a tool to support workers – not to replace them, but to work alongside them and improve production processes and the quality of the work carried out within companies.”