BBVA plans to close 14 of the 112 offices it has in the Canary Islands without specifying at the moment how many workers in this autonomous community will be affected by the 3,800 layoffs that it plans to carry out within its workforce in Spain, made up of some 23,300 employees.
The regional secretary of BBVA Canarias in UGT, Ramón Herrera, has told Efe that it is not yet known exactly which offices will close and what will be the distribution between the two provinces, and has speculated that it will probably not even be known when it will close the negotiation table.
It has been abundant in that one thing will depend on the other, that is, on which offices end up closing and on the typology of each one – number of employees, large cities or small municipalities – in order to estimate how many layoffs there could be in the Canary Islands. .
Herrera emphasized that BBVA’s branch network in the Canary Islands was already “rickety” in itself, since until the readjustment announced today by the management, two days after Caixabank did the same, there has been “a continuous trickle”.
In addition to employees, he has warned of the impact of these adjustments among customers, especially the elderly and professionals from sectors deeply affected by the pandemic such as the hospitality industry.
“Even if your office is not closed, it will not have employees or they will not assist you, and they will tell you to go to the cashier,” he warned customers.
UGT assures that it will do “what is possible and what is impossible”, including a schedule of mobilizations, if necessary, to reduce the size of the readjustment proposed by BBVA and because, if there are any, that the dismissals are voluntary.
Although “reality is harsh”, Herrera has admitted, because “unfortunately” the bank is “the worst employer” with which unions and workers have to deal, because it is “the most influential in all aspects”.
According to BBVA’s plans, of those 3,800 layoffs it foresees, 3,000 workers would leave the branch network, more than 21% of the people currently working in it, and the remaining 800 from the bank’s central services, 5% of the current total.
The bank’s management and the unions met this Thursday to negotiate a collective dismissal that BBVA defends due to the enormous competition in the sector, low interest rates, the accelerated adoption of digital channels by customers and the entry of new digital actors.
At the end of 2020, BBVA had 29,330 employees in Spain. However, if workers from different companies who will not be affected by the adjustments are excluded, the figure remains at about 23,300, hence the 3,800 proposed exits represent 16.3%.
The 530 branches that BBVA proposes to close represent 21.3% of the 2,482 that the bank had in Spain at the end of 2020 that would be distributed by the different territorial directions.
According to data also provided by CCOO, Catalonia would be the most affected region, with the closure of 204 branches, followed by far by the 101 closures of the territorial “Center”, which correspond to Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha, or the 76 of the territorial “South” -Andalucía, Extremadura, Ceuta and Melilla-.
Next would be the territorial “Northwest”, Galicia, Asturias and Castilla y León, with the closure of 59 branches; the “North”, Euskadi, Cantabria, Navarra, La Rioja and Aragón, where 41 BBVA offices would be closed and the “East” -Valencia, Balearic Islands and Murcia- where 35 branches would be closed.
The Canary Islands would be the least affected region, although BBVA would close 14 offices on the islands.
CCOO considers that it is a question of figures and an “unsustainable and scandalous” exit approach, which is far from everything that the bank has wanted to make the staff believe.
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