News

The measures imposed by the Troika through successive Memoranda (commitments accompanying the bail-out agreements) in Greece and the governmental decisions and implementing legislation, are literally aimed at the elimination of sectoral collective agreements.



According to the recently adapted legislation, the sectoral collective agreement of OTOE expired on 14/02/2013. Its terms and conditions will be valid for another 3 months, until 14/05/2013.



If a new sectoral collective agreement is not concluded with the Banks, by that date, then all terms and conditions of the sectoral collective agreement are automatically cancelled. The individual contract of each employee should include and cover the basic salary of the bank employee and 3 allowances (seniority, children and university degree allowance).



Despite this minimal transferability and validity of the sectoral collective agreement terms and conditions, bank employers are contesting those 3 allowances. They will therefore try to abolish them (by exerting pressure separately on each employee) and omit them from the signed individual contracts, so as to achieve further reductions down to the national institutional minimum level (National Collective Agreement of GSEE- the Greek Private Sector Trade Union Confederation – today 585 Euros gross).



The institutional process for defending the validity terms and conditions of the Collective Agreements (so-called Arbitration) was dismantled. Consequently, Bank employers are pushing for the non-application of the regulations and rules (both financial and institutional) in place aiming towards the final abolition of the sectoral collective agreement, namely the collective protection of employees.



Bank employers are seeking to diminish the institutional role of OTOE in transfer negotiations from the collective to individual level, in order to impose on employees their extortionate demands, turning to their advantage the omnipresent feelings of fear and insecurity.