Around 200 employees gathered in Paris on Tuesday in front of the bank’s historic headquarters.
Some 200 employees of the LCL bank, a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole SA, gathered in Paris on Tuesday, while several branches were closed in France due to a strike for wage increases and better working conditions. In total, 7% of LCL agencies are closed in France, out of a total of more than 1,700, management told AFP, who “regret this strike action“. The reception of businesses and professionals as well as private banking are not affected.
In some regions, according to the unions, the strike rate reaches between 30% and 50% of the staff. “A lot of agencies are closed“, advances Danièle Gourdet, national union representative FO.
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The unions FO and CFDT, respectively 2nd and 3rd unions of the bank, had called on Friday the employees to strike, denouncing in a press release a “extreme greed“. The two organizations were offended by management’s refusal to grant a general increase for 2023 after the 2.9% average obtained in July, a level well below inflation.
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Degraded “working conditions” and “commercial pressure”
To this increase paid “from July 2022” as an advance for 2023, are added “individual measurements“of the order of 3.5%, had reacted LCL, arguing a”average individual increase of 6.4%“. In addition, future bonusesshould be higher in 2023 than those paid in 2022“when they represented”more than two months of salary per employee“. Among the demonstrators gathered in front of the historic headquarters of LCL, Charline Joliveau, CGT union representative, denounced increases “swallowedby inflation.
The Otherwise Solidarity union, 4th formation, had for its part called for a strike at the start of the school year, and also denounced, through the voice of its secretary Thierry Cornu, “working conditions» degraded by posts left vacant and the «commercial pressure“. Vacancies while “business objectives are not scaled downHowever, added Danièle Gourdet to AFP.
“Resignations are on the rise“and the bank”has a hard time recruiting“, also denounced the inter-union FO and CFDT in their call for a strike. The SNB, the first union at LCL which is not a member of the intersyndicale, invited the employees “to show (their) discontent by participating in the social movement“And several employees with the bib of the union were present Tuesday in Paris, noted an AFP journalist. Over the first nine months of 2022, LCL recorded a net profit of 676 million euros, up 17.7% year on year.