Sascha Uebel, the new Chairman of the Works Council and Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank, has reaffirmed the employees' resistance to a takeover by Unicredit. In a dpa interview, the 49-year-old announced that he would put as many obstacles as possible in the way of the Italians, as „painful“ job cuts are implemented.

The transformation agreement concluded with the Management Board is valid until 30 June 2028. „There is nothing Andrea Orcel can do about it,“ said Uebel. "In the event of a takeover, he cannot come in 2027 and announce the loss of 3,000 more jobs“.

The fierce resistance of the Commerzbank workforce to the advances from Italy is nothing new. However, Uebel's combative behaviour sets him apart from his predecessor Uwe Tschäge, who retired last year. The latter rarely made public statements, and chose his words carefully. He preferred to leave the rumbling noises on the big stage to others. For example, the trade union representative on the Supervisory Board, Stefan Wittmann. He also left Commerzbank at the end of the year, making way for his Verdi colleague Kevin Voß.

Uebel's announcements aimed in the direction of Milan sound like partisan rhetoric. „We are making the path that Orcel has to take in the fight with us as muddy and deep as possible,“ says the employee representative from Offenbach, who joined Commerzbank two decades ago from Volksbank Dreieich, where he initially worked as a sales advisor in corporate banking. In 2008, he took over the management of the Hofheim and Bad Soden branch, staying in the post until 2016, when he took a leave of absence to join the works council.

Uebel believes that the head of the Italian parent company of HVB still underestimates the strong co-determination rights in Germany, predicting that he would have a tough time in any negotiations.

According to Uebel, the agreements on the reduction of up to 4,000 jobs contains a „cascade of hurdles“. For example, it stipulates that employees must be offered reasonable regional jobs so that they cannot be transferred to Munich, for example: „This makes redundancies for operational reasons virtually impossible.“

In contrast to „various Unicredit takeovers“, the early retirement regulations are not capped at 300,000 euros. Each early retirement costs Commerzbank an average of 380,000 euros, Uebel boasted. As with the last job cuts, „sprinter bonuses“ totalling 50,000 euros have also been agreed. Employees who sign a partial retirement agreement in 2025 could retire virtually without deductions by 2027. „In the end, we want to manage with a maximum of 400 termination agreements", he said.