Banking Labor Law Firm (CBA 18/75)

If you work at a bank and aren't paid the cash-handling premium, the zone premium, the degree premium, or overtime beyond the sector's reduced schedule, you have a concrete claim: CBA 18/75 sets those premiums, and all of them count toward your severance base if you're dismissed.

1. CBA 18/75: what it covers and what it adds to your pay

Collective Bargaining Agreement N° 18/75, signed between the Asociación Bancaria (La Bancaria) and the chambers of state-owned and private banks, covers all bank employees — state-owned, national, provincial, municipal, mixed, and private — nationwide (Art. 3). If you work at a bank, your pay stub should reflect, beyond the collective-bargaining base salary, the following items:

• Seniority with automatic promotion: administrative staff advance by seniority, with mandatory step-ups at 15 years (Ayudante de Firma), 20 years (Jefe de Sección), 25, 30 and 35 years. If the bank didn't promote you at those milestones, you're being paid below your actual category.
• Professional-degree premium: if you hold a recognized secondary, tertiary or university degree and don't practice that profession at the bank, the agreement recognizes a degree premium, tiered by specialty (Art. 10-11).
• IT technical-duty premium: systems analysts, programmers and operators have their own premium scale on the starting salary, based on seniority in the role, from tier F (up to 3 years) to tier A (over 12 years) (Art. 14).
• Cash-handling premium (Función Falla de Caja): if you handle funds — receiving, paying out, or both — a monthly premium is owed for the risk of handling cash: 15% to 20% if you receive payments, 20% to 30% if you receive and pay out, and 25% to 40% if you pay out, on your category's starting salary (Art. 22).
• Night-shift supplement: if your schedule falls between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., a monthly supplement is owed, proportional to the hours actually worked (Art. 15).
• Unfavorable or remote zone premium: if you started or were transferred to a branch in the interior classified as an inhospitable or high-cost-of-living zone, a premium of between 20% and 60% of the starting salary is owed, depending on the locality's group (Art. 25). This is a common claim after transfers the bank fails to reprice.
• Cash-in-transit premium (Portavalores): anyone who moves money or valuables outside the bank as a regular duty earns a specific risk premium (Art. 39).
• Uniform and break time: maintenance and janitorial staff are entitled to two uniforms a year plus footwear (Art. 37-38), and all staff get 25 uninterrupted minutes for a break during the shift (Art. 58).

None of these premiums are optional: if they are remunerative and habitual — meaning earned in at least 6 of the last 12 months — they count toward the base for your 13th-month bonus (SAC), your vacation pay, and your severance.

2. The most common claims in the banking sector

These are the claims we see most often from bank employees, with their legal basis:

• Incorrect classification or category: paying below the scale that matches your real seniority, or failing to promote you automatically at the agreement's milestones (Art. 5-6, CBA 18/75).
• Unrecognized overtime: working beyond the sector's reduced schedule without the surcharge under Article 201 of the Employment Contract Law (50% on ordinary days, 100% after 1 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays or holidays).
• Cash-handling premium unpaid, or paid off the books: differences of 15% to 40% missing from the pay stub, which also means they're missing from the bonus and the severance.
• Zone premium not repriced after a transfer to a branch in the interior.
• Miscalculated severance: Article 245, as rewritten by Law 27.802 (BO 3/6/2026), is based on the best normal and habitual monthly pay over the last year, excluding the SAC, vacation pay, and non-monthly bonuses, but including remunerative premiums earned in at least 6 of those months. If the bank calculated your severance on the base salary alone, without the cash-handling, degree, or zone premiums, the severance is understated.
• Death benefit unpaid to the beneficiaries of an employee who died while employed (Art. 55, CBA 18/75).

3. How we handle the claim, step by step

1. Free audit of your recent pay stubs and personnel file, to reconstruct the category and premiums you're owed under CBA 18/75.
2. Calculation of the difference between what you were paid and what's owed, including cash-handling, zone, degree and night-shift premiums where they apply.
3. Formal demand by free labor telegram, detailing the premiums owed and, where relevant, the missing classification.
4. Mandatory SECLO conciliation or a direct lawsuit, depending on the type of claim.
5. Court claim before the National Labor Courts if there's no settlement, on a 100% contingency fee basis.

4. Common mistakes when claiming in banking

• Signing your final settlement without auditing the cash-handling and zone premiums first.
• Accepting a classification below your real category "to avoid friction" with the branch.
• Letting the two-year deadline under Article 256 pass on monthly wage differences, which lapse month by month.
• Claiming only the base collective-bargaining salary without adding the remunerative premiums to the Article 245 base when calculating severance.

Frequently Asked Questions about Banking (CBA 18/75)