Union says HSBC threatening lock-out of bank employees

Strike action at HSBC Malta will continue on Saturday and Tuesday 7th April, as the bank decided to to threaten a lock-out of workers.

Strike action entered its second day Thursday after the Malta Union of Bank Employees embarked on industrial directives at the bank over disagreements on an agreement for workers.

"HSBC has chosen to threaten lock-out instead of sending concrete counter-proposals, following the support shown by the absolute majority of members of staff to the directives... MUBE has decided to step up its action by instructing members and non-members to support union strike action on Saturday 4th April and Tuesday 7th April," the union said.

Earlier this week 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.”