ARCHIVED - 6,452 CaixaBank staff to be laid off in the largest redundancy scheme in Spanish banking history
The number of jobs axed has been reduced by 22 per cent during negotiations
An agreement has been reached between the management and workforce of CaixaBank by which the number of staff laid off under the proposed “ERE” redundancy scheme will be 6,452, representing a decrease of 22 per cent from the figure originally put forward by the bank.
However, this is still the largest cut in any workforce in the history of Spanish banking, and although over 1,800 jobs have been “saved” by the negotiations the image of the company has been badly affected by the strikes held during the last couple of weeks. The cuts are attributed to streamlining following the merger of Caixabank with Bankia.
No details have yet been finalized concerning how many and which of the bank’s branches will be closed down in the short term, but it is inevitable that various among them will disappear in the near future: the original management proposal envisaged that 1,534 offices would be affected.
Other points which remain unresolved concern the distances remaining staff might be required to move as roles and jobs are reassigned, with workers’ representatives demanding greater flexibility, and the unions’ demand that pension contributions be raised from 1.75 per cent to 2 per cent.
Employees will be allowed to request voluntary redundancy, although limits are placed on the number of staff to be laid off in certain age groups: 750 people aged 52 or 53, and 1,750 aged 54 or 55. Those aged 63 or over will be indemnified to the tune of 20 days’ full salary per year worked.
In addition, the redundancies are to be distributed proportionately among the different regions of Spain: in Murcia, for example, 347 people can be made redundant out of a total workforve of 1,351.