News

For the first time in almost 16 years of social dialogue, social partners in the European Central bank reached a stage where the dialogue could transform into a real consultation.

“It would have been good to have a discussion before any decision had been taken, but we still have an opportunity to influence the ECB’s final decisions on some key aspects of the single supervisory mechanism’s implementation”, explains UNI Europa Regional Secretary Oliver Roethig at the social dialogue meeting on 19 May 2015.

For the first time, ECB management and executive board members were willing to take proposals from the trade union side on board for finalising or reviewing key procedures and documents.

For the implementation of the single supervisory mechanism (SSM), the ECB had issued an Ethics Frameworks, a performance feedback for employees, new travel arrangements for on-site inspections as well as a new Eurosystem/SSM Mission Statement. Employees of central banks and supervisory authorities had been very concerned about the implications for everyday working conditions. Also, they critisise possible different treatment and different pay of staff within the “Joint Supervisory Teams” who are now charged with on-site inspections of banks. The Eurosystem/SSM mission statement had been prepared without taking any of the suggestions on board that the trade unions had already provided in 2005 when the first Eurosystem mission statement had been published.

Roethig explained that trade unions were ready to help improve the SSM with the employees’ practical knowledge about the reality of banking supervision. “A failing of the SSM would have catastrophic consequences for the European economic and financial system as a whole”, concluded in his final remarks.

The plenary meeting had been convened on the basis of an addendum to the social dialogue agreement that allows for a more in-depth analysis on the single supervisory mechanism (SSM). Roethig chaired the meeting for the workers’ side.