The workers council at Novo Banco is in urgent discussions with the management over restructuring plans to dismiss 500 staff. Nearly 500 employees already have left through voluntary redundancies and retirement but the target of 1,000 has not been met.
Workers' representatives have warned management that it does not accept the proposed mass lay-off of staff and issued an appeal to bank employees: "We call on all staff not to sign any documents without referring to the national committee of workers or their union."
The workers council also stressed that "Novo Banco workers are serious and honest professionals, and take no responsibility for what happened with BES in August 2014," so "we are doing our utmost to maintain all jobs and all accumulated rights."
Workers' representatives consider that the restructuring plan makes no sense in the absence of a clear definition of what is intended for Novo Banco and guarantee that they will fight for ann alternative solution and for the suspension of the lay-offs.
The workers council wants the bank to be nationalised, seeing this option as “just and fair” and voiced this opinion in meetings last December with the Ministry of Finance and parliamentary committees.
The workers’ council now wants audiences with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Labour, the Governor of the Bank of Portugal and parliamentary committees.
In the presentation of Novo Banco’s 2015 results, a loss of €980 million, the president of the bank, Eduardo Stock da Cunha, did not mention details of his restructuring plan or how it was going.
Since Novo Banco was created, 411 workers have left but this is less than half the target to shed 1,000 staff.
The bank’s management guarantees that it will try to reach an amicable agreement with workers and has the support of the Bank of Portugal which "reiterates its support for the management team and the timely restructuring plan submitted to and approved by the European authorities."
Nationalisation?
In the first hint yet that the sale of Novo Banco could be delayed until such time as market conditions improve, the Prime Minister’s Deputy Minister, Eduardo Cabrita, said today that the bank needs to be stablised before a sale can take place.
Cabrita said that Novo Banco will be sold to recoup the money spent by the Resolution Fund and the taxpayer on setting it up. He also was highly critical of the previous government which he says rushed the first sale process, "We know that the hasty sales strategy failed."
The vice president of the Socialists João Galamba said the bank would be sold, but added that keeping the bank under State control is a last resort if no buyer can be found.
The Communists have submitted a draft resolution to keep Novo Banco under government control. The ‘good bank’ was set up after BES went bust in August 2014 and the government pumped in €4.9 billion.
Former President Cavaco Silva and the former Novo Banco boss Vítor Bento both have admitted that the nationalisation of the bank could be a "way out" as a good sale price may be hard to find.
In November 2015, the former Secretary of State for Transport and Communications, Sérgio Monteiro, was hired by the Bank of Portugal at €30,000 a month to front a new sale process for Novo Banco.
Monteiro’s new job came about as the Bank of Portugal and Novo Banco wanted someone exclusively to be involved in the new sale process. Monteiro has 12 months from November 1st, 2015 to ‘finalise the sale of Novo Banco,’ but with a new government in charge, and no updates as to his progress, his contract is easy to cancel with valid justification.
