Union pressure on CaixaBank’s intention to lay off 7,800 employees grows. On May 4, they sent a letter to the FROB, dependent on the Ministry of Economy, and owner of 16% of CaixaBank with a member on its board, demanding that they vote against the increase in the salaries of the bank’s board of directors, and against the ERE.
They send a letter to the State Fund, which controls 16% of the bank, and to the La Caixa Foundation to reject the salary increases of the bank’s leadership at the meeting on May 14
“We ask you to vote in the opposite direction to the salary increases for managers proposed at the next general meeting of shareholders on the 14th,” the letter highlights. This request is linked to the criticisms made two weeks ago by the Vice President and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, about the high salaries that bankers receive, more at a time of labor adjustment such as CaixaBank and BBVA.
On May 14, CaixaBank will hold its shareholders’ meeting, and the salaries of the entity’s leadership will be submitted for approval, and among them, the new salary of José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, new president of the entity, which will more than triple his remuneration with respect to the remuneration he received at Bankia, going from 500,000 euros in salary to more than 1.6 million per year.
Calviño even urged the Bank of Spain to regulate the salaries of bankers, although it is the European Central Bank (ECB) that regulates this issue, and already recommended in March last year not to distribute bonuses among the executives of the sector as a measure. of prudence due to the pandemic, included in the veto of the dividend until September, predictably, which will be when it reviews its proposal.
In their letter, the unions also pressure the FROB to stop the ERE proposed by CaixaBank. The staff representatives ask “that you become actively involved to stop this savage and unjustified process, since you are not, on behalf of the FROB, oblivious to this situation nor can this body be an accomplice of it.”
Yesterday they also sent the president of the La Caixa Foundation, Isidro Fainé, another letter in the same terms, as the main shareholder of CaixaBank, a bank in which he controls 30% of its capital.
On April 28, the unions sent a letter to all the deputies against these dismissals, which they consider “absolutely abusive.” In the letter they asked the politicians not to allow “to be made accomplices” of the ERE.
At the meeting this Wednesday between CaixaBank and the unions, the entity announced the hiring of Lee Hecht Harrison and McKinsey to relocate those affected by the ERE.
