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In January 2002, an innovative company-level collective agreement was signed at Portugal's BCP banking group. The deal: creates institutionalised mechanisms for the resolution of conflict (such as arbitration); allows for more a flexible organisation of working time; improves supplementary pension provisions; and enhances career development.
In January 2001, a company-level collective agreement was signed between the BCP Group (Grupo Banco Comercial Português, BCP) and the Northern Banking Unions (Sindicatos dos Bancários do Norte, SBN), Central Banking Union (Sindicato dos Bancários do Centro, SBC) and Southern and Islands Banking Union (Sindicato dos Bancários do Sul e Ilha, SBSI).
BCP withdrew from the sectoral agreement for banking in 1997 (PT9709138N) and negotiations with most trade unions had been at an impasse since 1997 (PT9802166N). However, pressure for the conclusion of a new agreement was increased by the fact the merger of various banks within the BCP Group had led to the co-existence of various employment systems and conditions, which had led to inequality and discrimination between different groups of workers.
The deal that has been reached is considered as being innovative in several regards. Notably, it gives special importance to the procedural mechanisms for conflict resolution and the exercise of union rights, through:
- the creation of a joint management-union commission for monitoring and implementing the agreement, which serves as a means of reinforcing the trade unions' voice within the company;
- the establishment of an arbitration mechanism in order to settle disputes related to future negotiations, whose rulings will have the same legal weight as the outcomes of the collective bargaining process; and
- the guaranteed right of company employees who are union representatives to conduct union activities.
Such issues are very seldom the issue of negotiations in Portugal.
Other innovative aspects of the BCP agreement include:
- the introduction of a system of working time organisation with increased timetable flexibility. The seven-hour day and 35-hour week (already in effect for several years) may be varied around this average over a reference period of two months, though working time may not exceed 45 hours per week and nine hours per day. The working hours of establishments have been fixed between 08.00 and 20.00. These measures have resolved long-standing disagreements over the issue of overtime working;
- employers' contributions to the supplementary pension scheme will reflect, from now on, additional remuneration earned by employees, resulting in an increase in pensions. The monthly minimum payments for pensioners are also increased. The context is that the banking sector has a special independent supplementary pension, health and social assistance scheme (PT0107156N) - unique in Portugal - complemented in the case of BCP by a private insurance company (Médis); and
- improvements in service-related pay increments, and in mortgage entitlement conditions for employees.
The signatory trade unions also highlight the following aspects of the BCP deal:
- all workers will in future be in an occupational category that allows them to progress in their careers, which has not always been the case, given the ways in which some employees have been recruited; and
- one of the agreement's basic aims is the 'contractual institutionalisation of internal company rights'- ie laying down in a collective agreement various provisions formerly based only on custom and practice. Furthermore, Portuguese collective agreements sometimes contain very generic clauses with no practical application, but it is intended that the clauses in the new agreement (a compromise involving gains and losses on both sides) should have concrete effect within the BCP Group.
The new agreement at BCP affects 11,430 current employees, plus over 11,000 retired pensioners. The union membership rate in the group stands at between 75% and 85%, and over 95% among pensioners.