Banking employees’ union escalates HSBC actions

The Malta Union of Bank Employees – MUBE has decided to escalate action at HSBC after having received no counter-proposal to demands on recruitment.

This follows HSBC’s unilateral decision to pull out of an agreement which MUBE insists it had agreed way back in August last year.

The MUBE is now encouraging staff to continue supporting the directives by obeying a directive which calls for a sit-in type of strike action for Wednesday 1 April.

“MUBE insists that the bank must make a better effort to bargain fairly and be practical with all categories of staff across the board and ensure that this is achieved. MUBE also understands that the directive might have its own direct unwarranted impact on customer service and therefore regrets any inconvenience caused.”

On Friday, MUBE issued a communications ban directive at HSBC Bank Malta, following the serious disagreement in negotiations for a new collective agreement.

“MUBE is seriously concerned with HSBC’s behaviour and attitude towards the local workforce which is undermining career prospects to local hardworking employees. The Union 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.

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.”

The union said that its directive may restrict some services to customers and regrets any inconvenience caused.