A Maybank employee has lodged a police report that he and his wife each received a threat by phone on Monday, apparently linked to the bank's move to outsource its infrastructure services department to an IT firm.

K Ponnudurai, one of the 290 infrastructure services staff affected by the deal, said in his police report that a man had called his cellular phone on Monday morning, saying, "(RM)1.3 billion is a lot of money. You, (your) wife and children better be careful" before hanging up.

He said his wife received a call at their home telephone number about five minutes later. The male caller said "Tell your husband to stop what he is doing. His life is at stake."

In his report lodged at the Tun HS Lee police station, Ponnudurai claimed that the calls were related to the outsourcing deal. He has been among the staff members who have been pressuring the bank to improve its terms of compensation.

Under the arrangement, the infrastructure services staff have been offered employment with the new vendor CSA Malaysia, a local affiliate of US-based IT services firm CSC, with effect from Oct 13. The deal is reportedly worth RM1.3 billion.

Since they are being "transferred" to CSA, Maybank has claimed that it is not obliged to pay retrenchment benefits. Instead, it has offered a parting ex-gratia payment of three months' salary to all staff, irrespective of their years of service.

Points of contention

However, a majority of the affected staff have disputed the terms, claiming that they have not been offered a choice to be transferred to other departments within the bank if they do not wish to take up their new posting.

In addition, the employees in a Sept 5 letter to Maybank CEO Amirsham Aziz said the ex-gratia payment has failed to consider the fact that more than half of the employees have served between 10 to 20 years with the bank.

Their move to CSA would effectively take them out of employment by a major Malaysian bank, and force them to face a riskier future with another firm, they alleged.

As such, they said the bank's move has effectively made them redundant and that they are therefore deserving of a retrenchment package.

Following daily pickets since last Thursday and mediation by industrial relations director-general Ismail Abdul Rahim, Maybank apparently made a verbal offer yesterday evening of an additional ex-gratia sum equivalent to one month's salary. An announcement is expected soon.