Bank union praises ‘total success’ of HSBC communications ban directives

The Malta Union of Bank Employees has described an ongoing communications ban directive at HSBC Bank Malta as a “total success”.

Thanking its members for their “solidarity”, MUBE reiterated that HSBC bank employees are unsatisfied with their current situation.

“This is contrary to the ‘happy picture’ continuously being portrayed by the bank,” MUBE said in a statement. “We have learnt a lot from this industrial action as feedback suggests that top management needs to work much harder on making HSBC the best place to work.”

The MUBE issued directives on 27 March following a serious disagreement in negotiations for a new collective agreement.

“We are seriously concerned with HSBC’s behavior and attitude towards the local workforce which is undermining career prospects to local hardworking employees,” the union said. “We cannot accept such an intransigent approach to negotiations whereby the bank has decided to unilaterally withdraw an originally agreed collective agreement at the end of last August’s negotiations.”

The union said that no reasonable efforts to seriously negotiate were forthcoming from HSBC management. “This has been also aggravated by unacceptably low increases in salary and mediocre bonus awards which emanated from a unilateral decision taken by the bank outside the collective agreement negotiations,” the union said.  

“Whilst HSBC is adamant on holding back on local negotiations, MUBE is constantly receiving feedback that management is effectively spending much more on international recruits who are being paid ‘hefty’ financial packages and who seem to be leaving a negative impact on the balance sheet to the detriment of local employees.”