The online petition is addressed to the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic, the Prime Minister and parliamentary groups and, according to STEC, aims for these political leaders to "intervene in order to put an end to the continuous deterioration of working conditions and weakening of the mission of Caixa Geral de Depósitos [CGD] as a 100% public bank".

According to the petition, CGD is managed as a private bank, "completely ignoring its social responsibility, progressively shrinking its roots in the national territory", when - it considers - "it should be at the service of the national economy and the country, supporting families and companies when they need it most".

Among the measures defended by STEC is a limit on the increase in interest rates on home loans and the creation of a moratorium by which customers can interrupt the payment of principal and interest on home loans, considering that this would protect "thousands of families from the risk of default".

It also defends limits on the increase in bank fees, and that this would influence the fees of the sector, and the end of the closure of branches (it states that 300 have been closed since 2012), which it considers guarantees the proximity of the population to banking services.

The petition also focuses on labour issues, with STEC stating that the bank has seen a "continuous deterioration of working conditions at CGD, with more than 3,500 workers being laid off since 2012" and current employees providing a lower quality of service while being "subject to enormous pressure to achieve unrealistic goals".

The union therefore defends "the valorisation and dignification of working conditions" in the public bank, with better salary increases, the recovery of the four career years between 2013 and 2016, the payment of all overtime work, the end of harassment practices (which it says lead to an increase in illnesses such as depression and 'burnout') and the end of the use of precarious work.

The petition calls on the Government to take responsibility and intervene in CGD's structural decisions in "labour and social matters" and to appoint a management "committed to the mission and values" of the bank.

STEC has been critical of CGD's management led by Paulo Macedo. On 1 March this year, a strike was held against this year's salary proposal.

After the strike, CGD revised its average salary increase proposal to 3.4% this year, compared to the previous 3.25%, a value that STEC continued to refuse as insufficient.

STEC then considered that the proposal for 2024 is "meagre and indecent", especially after the €1,291 million in profits for 2023 (the highest of the banks in Portugal), and "does not allow for the recovery of the brutal loss of purchasing power that workers and pensioners have suffered in recent years".

The union also says that CGD "maintains its intention to replace fair and decent salary increases with performance bonuses", when these are not for everyone, are not guaranteed and are awarded based on "opaque, arbitrary and discriminatory criteria".

Speaking to Lusa, Pedro Messias said that CGD's justification for the proposed increases is that it has to "converge with the banking sector". For the unionist, this means that for the management of the public bank "there has to be a regression of the salary table in the banking sector" when, he argued, it is the rest of the banking sector that has to improve salaries.

On 15 March, at the press conference to present the 2023 accounts, in response to workers' demands, the executive president of CGD said that the public bank has to remain competitive.

"There is a time to say 'no' and a time to say 'yes'. You have to say 'no' when the issues are unreasonable. Don't ask us to do things that are not rational," said Paulo Macedo, in response to journalists.

CGD had 6,243 employees in Portugal at the end of 2023.

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