CCOO calls for demonstrations in front of the main banks in 12 cities to demand labor improvements

In the banking sector, as of today (October 2026) the reference collective agreements are fully in force until December 31, 2026 and the negotiation of new texts for 2027 and beyond is in a preparatory phase, not yet formal negotiation. Available forecasts place the effective start of the new negotiation tables around February‑March 2027, once union representation is renewed.

1. Banking collective agreement (AEB)

The currently applicable agreement is the XXV Collective Agreement for the banking sector (2024‑2026), signed on November 12, 2024 between the Spanish Banking Association (AEB) and CCOO‑Servicios, FeSMC‑UGT and FINE, and published in the BOE on January 1, 2025 with validity 1/1/2024–31/12/2026. It was later amended to include a new chapter on planned measures for the real and effective equality of LGTBI people, registered and published by the Directorate General of Labor on June 5, 2025 (text in BOE).

From the available information it follows that:

• The current agreement remains the basic regulatory framework for salaries, working hours, professional classification, etc., until the end of 2026.
• The 2025 amendment does not alter the temporal validity but adds a specific chapter on LGTBI measures, harassment prevention protocols, and planning obligations in companies with more than 50 employees.
• Formal negotiation of the agreement succeeding the XXV agreement has not yet been officially opened; we are in the phase of platforms and union pressure.

2. Savings agreement (CECA) and credit cooperatives

In the field of savings banks and financial savings entities, the state agreement 2024‑2026 also maintains its validity until December 31, 2026. In April 2025, a modification agreement was registered and published to incorporate LGTBI measures (new article 108), signed by CECA and the unions FINE, CCOO Servicios, FeSMC‑UGT and CIC (BOE-A-2025-9797). The core of the agreement (salaries, working hours, structure) remains in force.

Sector information handled by CCOO and other actors indicates that the three main areas of the retail financial sector —banking (AEB), savings (CECA) and credit cooperatives— share a similar scheme:

• Agreements in force expiring on 12/31/2026.
• Forecast that new sectoral agreement negotiations will take place in parallel throughout 2027.
• Union demand to activate from now the Banking and Savings observatories and the Joint Commission of Rural Banks to address substantive issues before the formal opening of the negotiation tables.

An article from Demócrata about this autumn's mobilizations summarizes the timeline: demonstrations are called in 12 cities in front of Santander, BBVA, CaixaBank, Sabadell, Unicaja, Ibercaja, Abanca or Cajamar to pressure on salaries, workloads, work-life balance and the impact of artificial intelligence, explicitly stating that “the new sector agreements will begin to be negotiated in March 2027” (Demócrata).

3. Reference union proposals

Various economic reports already detail CCOO's starting position for the next cycle of agreements in banking and savings, among other media El Español, Infobae or Cinco Días. Among the announced axes for the new banking agreement are:

• Salary increase around 7% for 2027 and 4% annually between 2028 and 2030, with revision clauses linked to the CPI.
• Profit-sharing pay between 1% and 2%.
• Reduction of working hours towards about 1,600 annual hours and progress towards three-day weekends.
• Expansion of teleworking up to three days a week.
• Measures against commercial workloads and the impact of digitalization and artificial intelligence.

At this moment, these are claim platforms, not closed agreements.

4. Bank of Spain agreement and other subsectors

As context, in September 2026 the Bank of Spain Collective Agreement was published in the BOE, with a temporal scope of 2025‑2026 and effective from January 1, 2025 (BOE-A-2026-19603). There is also a state framework agreement for financial credit establishments, published in July 2024 (BOE-A-2024-14717). Both fall within the broad financial scope but are not part of the AEB/CECA sectoral tables.

5. External prevention services linked to banking

In the information consulted, there is no specific sectoral collective agreement for “external banking prevention services”. Usually, these entities are governed by:

• A company or group-specific agreement, when it exists.
• The state agreement for external prevention services or another sectoral agreement applicable to their main activity.

Therefore, the renewal of banking or savings agreements does not automatically determine the conditions of external prevention services, which depend on the agreement indicated in their contracts and registrations.

6. Next steps until March 2027

With the available information, the most reasonable schedule is:

• Autumn 2026: union mobilizations and opening of banking and savings observatories and the joint commission of rural banks, to prepare the ground for negotiation.
• Until 12/31/2026: full validity of the current banking, savings and credit cooperative agreements.
• January 2027: the new agreement period opens, with legal margin to start negotiation, but still conditioned by the renewal of union representation.
• February‑March 2027: forecast of union elections in the sector, constitution of the negotiation tables and effective start of talks on the new sector agreements.

Until March 2027, therefore, the expected scenario is a just-started negotiation, with strong union pressure and no definitive agreements yet on salaries, working hours or teleworking.

The CCOO Services Federation (commonly called CCOO Servicios) is the branch federation of Comisiones Obreras that groups workers from a wide range of private service sectors: commerce, banking and insurance, tourism and hospitality, contact centers, information technologies, offices, administrative services, among others. Within the Spanish union framework, it acts as a specialized structure of CCOO in these areas, with functions of representation, negotiation and union organization throughout the national territory.

Representation and defense of workers

Its essential function is the collective representation of the workforce in the sectors it covers. This includes:

• Defending the labor, economic and social interests of workers against companies and before public administrations.
• Intervening in collective conflicts (for example, in the face of collective redundancies or corporate restructurings), proposing alternatives, denouncing abuses and using necessary union and legal channels.
• Channeling workplace demands towards the sectoral and confederal levels of CCOO.

Sectoral and company collective bargaining

CCOO Servicios has a central role in collective bargaining in its sectors:

• Leading or coordinating the negotiation of state and company collective agreements in commerce, banking, insurance, collective catering, mutual societies, tourism, ICT, etc., according to the framework of the Workers' Statute.
• Sharing full legitimacy, alongside sector employers' associations, to sign agreements such as the State Collective Agreement for Collective Catering, where it is expressly listed as a negotiating union party.
• Setting criteria and red lines on salaries, working hours, professional classification, equality plans, work-life balance, leave and union rights that are then applied by its sectoral and territorial structures in various negotiation tables.

Union action, mobilization and collective conflict

Beyond the negotiation table, the federation promotes the union action necessary to support workforce demands:

• Calling and organizing strikes, demonstrations and campaigns when companies block negotiation or apply unilateral measures (collective dismissals, cuts, wage freezes, etc.).
• Publicly denouncing situations of precariousness, agreement breaches, abusive treatment or union repression, as occurs in sectors such as digital platforms, call centers or certain service companies.
• Coordinating with other CCOO structures and other union organizations joint actions before sector employers or the Government.

Workplace organization and union elections

Within the framework of the Organic Law on Trade Union Freedom, CCOO Servicios is responsible for:

• Promoting and supporting the establishment of union sections, works councils and staff delegates in companies within its scope.
• Planning and coordinating union elections, aiming to strengthen CCOO's presence as the leading force in the service sectors.
• Supporting the legal representation of workers in their daily dealings with the company: information, consultation, negotiation and monitoring compliance with regulations and agreements.

Legal advice, training and information

As part of its internal competencies, the federation provides:

• Legal and technical advice to members and union structures in individual and collective conflicts (dismissals, sanctions, claims, professional classification, etc.).
• Union and professional training on labor rights, collective bargaining, occupational health, equality and work digitalization, among other areas.
• Informative materials, guides and sector reports that guide action in companies and negotiation tables.

Sector coordination and institutional participation

Within CCOO's internal architecture, the Services Federation:

• Defines, through its statutes and federal congresses, the specific union policy for service sectors, in coherence with the orientations of the CCOO Trade Union Confederation.
• Coordinates the actions of its territorial structures and state sectors to ensure a coherent union strategy nationwide.
• Participates in social dialogue bodies and joint commissions monitoring agreements, as well as in consultation spaces with the Administration and employers, exercising the representation and defense functions of collective interests that Spanish law recognizes to unions.

Overall, the CCOO Services Federation is the instrument through which Comisiones Obreras articulates representation, negotiation and mobilization in much of the service economy, combining individual legal defense with collective action and participation in the social dialogue typical of the Spanish union model.

In the Spanish financial sector, the negotiation of labor conditions is governed by the general rules of collective bargaining provided in labor law, with some particularities derived from the structure of the sector itself (banking, savings, insurance, auxiliary services, etc.). More than a “special financial regime,” what is decisive is who legitimately represents the workforce and companies, how the negotiation table is constituted, and what material limits cannot be exceeded.

1. Who can negotiate on behalf of the workers

In general terms, those legitimized to negotiate are:

• Unitary representation: works councils and staff delegates of the entity or workplace, when negotiating company or workplace agreements.
• Union representation:
  • Most representative unions at the state or regional level.
  • Unions with significant presence in the affected scope (for example, unions with relevant implantation in banking or insurance, even if they are not state “confederations”).
  • Union sections established in the company or group, when they reach the necessary representativeness in the negotiation scope.

In the financial sector practice, the major branch unions (financial services, insurance, etc.) usually accumulate most of the representation, giving them a central role at the negotiation table.

2. Who can negotiate on behalf of the companies

On the employer side, legitimacy is usually structured as follows:

• For sectoral agreements (e.g., banking, savings banks, insurance):
  • Employers' associations in the sector that gather sufficient economic and employment representativeness (for example, banking associations, savings entities, insurers or other specific financial services employers' associations).
  • Sometimes, several employers' associations may intervene if the agreement covers different subsectors (traditional banking, consumer finance, insurers, etc.).
• For company or workplace agreements:
  • The company itself, represented by its management.
  • Occasionally, the group of companies or the parent entity, if the agreement scope is group-wide.

3. Constitution and functioning of the negotiation table

For the agreement or contract to have general effect in its scope, it is essential that:

• All organizations with sufficient legitimacy (unions and employers or company) according to their implantation sit at the table.
• The social side represents a relevant fraction of the workforce in the affected scope, and the employer side a significant portion of companies and employment in the sector or company.
• Written records are kept of:
  • The constitution of the table and its composition.
  • Negotiation sessions and partial agreements.
  • The final agreed text and the majority support of each side.

In the financial sector, where several employers' associations and unions with similar strength often coexist, negotiation frequently requires internal majorities within each “bank” (union and employer) to close a valid agreement.

4. Differences between sector agreements and company agreements

In the financial field coexist:

• Sector collective agreements: banking, savings entities, insurance, insurance mediation, etc. They set the “floor” of conditions (base salaries, pay structure, typical working hours, categories, leaves, etc.) for the entire sector or subsector.
• Company or group agreements:
  • Allow adapting conditions to the specific business model (digital banking, fintech, outsourced services, financial contact centers).
  • Can improve what is provided in the sector agreement and, in some aspects, organize or redistribute it, always respecting legal limits and what the law reserves for the sector level.

It is key to respect the rules on articulation of collective bargaining: not everything can be “opted out” or modified at the company level; there are matters reserved or conditioned by the sector agreement and by law.

5. Registration, publication and role of the labor authority

Once the agreement is reached:

• A record of the negotiating commission must be drawn up with the text of the agreement.
• It is submitted to the competent labor authority (state or regional, depending on the scope) for registration.
• The registered agreement is published in the corresponding official bulletin (BOE or regional/provincial bulletins), an essential condition for its general effectiveness.

In this process, the labor authority mainly controls formal and basic legality (competence of the body, documentation, minimum respect for mandatory rules), without entering into the economic content unless there is a manifest violation of mandatory law.

6. Material limits: what cannot be agreed

Even if there is agreement between companies and workers, negotiation in the financial sector must respect:

• Mandatory labor law rules (maximum working hours, rest periods, minimum vacations, minimum wage, limits on overtime, protection of minors, etc.).
• Rules on equality and non-discrimination (by sex, age, origin, disability, etc.).
• Occupational risk prevention regulations, including protection against psychosocial risks derived from high commercial pressure, targets and digitalized work management, very relevant in banking and insurance.
• Other limits derived from legislation on data protection, work-life balance, shared responsibility and digital disconnection, which condition work organization and technological tools typical of the sector.

When an agreement violates these limits, it can be challenged before the social jurisdiction, and the affected party (usually workers or their representatives) can request its total or partial nullity.