The National Union of Bank Employees has called upon Human Resources Minister Dr Fong Chan Onn to intervene in the bitter leadership in the embattled union.

The union has criticised the "irresponsible" turnabout of director-general of trade unions Zulkifly Abdullah for refusing to call fresh elections to resolve NUBE's protracted internal feud.

"Why did it take the DGTU (Zulkifly) three months before realising he was powerless to act on something he mooted three months ago?" said NUBE president Abdul Jalil Hamid in a press statement yesterday.

According to the union, Zulkifly had insisted on new elections for NUBE on March 21 this year.

"However, Zulkifly changed his tone out of the blue in a letter dated July 11, stating that he has no power under the Trade Union Act to call for re-election," said Abdul Jalil.

Zulkifly has sent a copy of the letter to the leader of rival faction, Mohd Noor Basir.

Abdul Jalil said that Zulkifly's non-committal attitude, by going back on his suggestion for a re-election in the union, has caused trauma and affected the financial status of bank employees around the country.

Bank accounts frozen

Furthermore, he said Zulkifli had unilaterally advised banks to freeze the union's bank accounts, rendering about 30 of its administrative staff uncertain on whether they would be getting their July salary.

Last November, Malayan Commercial Banks' Association said it was compelled to stop deducting union fees due to conflicting instructions given to the banks by two squabbling factions of the union, who both claimed to be the legitimate faction.

Abdul Jalil's faction is seeking new elections to solve the leadership dispute once and for all, but this is apparently opposed by the rival faction.

"What is his (Zulkifli's) game?...He appears to be playing with the livelihood of 30,000 union members and that is very irresponsible, careless and ignorant," Abdul Jalil claimed.

"We will set the record straight...because we suspect there is more to his reluctance in endorsing the election results than meets the eye."

Over the last two years, NUBE has been fraught with allegations of fraud, abuse of power, misappropriation of funds and numerous police reports from both contending factions.

The group led by Abdul Jalil has sent several memoranda to the relevant government officials, and has been trying to meet the prime minister, his deputy, the deputy finance minister, government MPs, the human resources minister and the minister in the PM's department.

Fong has however classified the dispute as an internal matter which the union must solve by itself.