Germany: Verdi union demands better working conditions for banking employees during next round of collective bargaining

Tremendous mental pressure, Ver.di says. Convinced that the financial crisis was partly caused by worsening working conditions in banks (high pressure, race for marketing goals, stress, leaves that aren’t replaced…), Verdi wants to use the next round of collective bargaining to force banks to carry out “structural changes.” Thus, after the meeting of its tariff committee on February 1 in Hanover, Verdi announced that it wanted to conclude a collective agreement for the 250,000 people working in banking “learning the lessons from the financial crisis” and avoiding that employees end up “in a situation of conflict of interest between the bank and customers.” “Many account managers are subject to enormous pressure and sell their clients products they wouldn’t have sold if they didn’t have marketing goals. Mental pressure is huge and many of them get sick” a Ver.di spokesman told Planet Labor. In addition to better working conditions, Verdi wants an “adequate” wage increase, a new agreement on part-time retirement (which expires on April 30, 2010) and better employment guarantees. In the fall 2008, Verdi terminated the agreement on the “protection against rationalization measures” (Rationalisierungsschutzabkommen) which groups together all employment protection measures, to obtain better guarantees (see our dispatch No. 090458). However, after four rounds of negotiations, the social partners still couldn’t agree on this issue, which will also be discussed during the next collective negotiations.