Nube launches nationwide picket against banks over union-busting

The National Union of Bank Employees (Nube) will launch nationwide pickets to protest the “increasingly outrageous” ways bank chief executive officers (CEOs) commit union-busting.

In a statement today, its secretary-general J Solomon said bank CEOs are denying their workers several rights including the right to work-life balance, job security, and freedom from bullying, discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment.

Workers are also being denied the right to fair remuneration, participation in union work, freedom from union-busting, the freedom to attend training on paid leave and the right to have a two percent SST paid for workers’ family medical insurance, he added.

“A significant number of the banks are government-linked companies (GLC) acting contrary to their purpose of existence.

“Local- and foreign-owned banks, emboldened by the GLCs’ example, are also becoming blatant in their transgressions against the rights of workers.

“Regulatory bodies, however, are silent of their misconduct, favouring the oppressors,” Solomon said.

Treated like slaves

He pointed out that certain bank CEOs have annual earnings that some Nube members would only earn after working 1,000 years.

“Such outrageous earnings do not place the CEOs in a caste above the working class.

“Nube members may be earning less than the CEOs but equal human rights are for all, and we demand such equal human rights, not to be treated as slaves.

“These bank CEOs have been continuously transgressing established processes, procedures, norms and international labour conventions, in their interactions and negotiations with Nube,” Solomon said without stating which banks he was referring to.

Terrible work-life balance

Established in 1958, Nube claims to represent some 30,000 employees around the country.

Solomon claimed that Malaysia is among the countries with the worst work-life balance.

“If the CEOs continue to act as masters and demand that the working class abide by everything that they say, it is pre-meditated enslavement of the working class.

“No citizen of a sovereign nation should abide by being continuously treated in such a slave-like manner, especially in their own country.

“We seek the support of our customers during the picket and trust that they understand that our fight to instil justice and respect for workers, who are the rakyat, is a necessary one,” he said.

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