The National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) will distribute ballot papers to 23,000 members starting Tuesday to endorse, among other resolutions, the national executive council's decisions to suspend and expel members and branches.

The 42 delegates who attended the Extraordinary Delegates Conference in Penang yesterday unanimously adopted the 12 resolutions.

NUBE president Abdul Jalil Abdul Hamid said the delegates strongly felt that the issues affecting the union should be resolved by members, through a referendum by ballots.

"Once the balloting exercise is carried out and the members vote in favour of the resolutions, then that decision should be respected by all, including the relevant authorities," he said in a statement.

He also said that with a fresh mandate, the officials can concentrate fully on securing better terms and conditions of employment for its members in the next collective agreement, due at the end of the year.

The ballots are to be returned to the respective branches on July 19 for counting before the results are forwarded to the NUBE headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

Among the resolutions are to endorse and support the suspension of several branches, expulsion of branch officials and key national exco members which occurred in recent months, as well as replacement of affected office bearers.

The delegates at yesterday's conference represented members of the Penang, Ipoh and Klang branches.

Appointment of delegates

The Kedah, Kuala Lumpur and Seremban branches were suspended last April due to their refusal to comply with NUBE rules. This was followed by the expulsion of officials for unlawfully breaking into the union's sealed premises and removing documents, files, letter head and cheque books.

The resolutions include the appointment of interim committees to assume the duties of the branch committees for the term 2002-2005 and to appoint from among themselves delegates for the union's triennial delegates conference.

One resolution also seeks to extend the scope of representation for the NUBE to cater for employees in all subsidiaries of a bank where banking functions have been outsourced.

Another proposes that the national exco pursues investigations into several cases of financial mismanagement which had caused several million ringgit in losses for NUBE.