{"id":4455,"date":"2015-06-11T13:14:11","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T12:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=4455"},"modified":"2015-06-11T14:01:06","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T13:01:06","slug":"hsbc-adding-insult-to-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=4455","title":{"rendered":"HSBC: adding insult to injury"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The massive jobs cull announced by HSBC on Tuesday (June 9), in which 8,000 posts will be axed over the next two years, is only the latest instance of the bank\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blatant disregard for its most valuable asset \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the workforce \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the customers it serves.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe bank has presided over a string of branch closures, including most recently in Plymouth and Peterborough, leaving many customers without easily accessible branches to manage their finances.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn 2014 alone, HSBC closed 53 branches. In fact, over the past ten years, the bank has accounted for 20 per cent of all branch closures \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a phenomenon that, as UniteLive has reported<\/a>, has meant that some communities, especially rural ones, have not one local branch in their area.<\/p>\n

 
\nHSBC members now facing the loss of their already meagre income \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many frontline staff earn as little as \u00c2\u014114,000 a year, just barely above the minimum wage \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have already suffered multiple blows to their terms and conditions.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn 2013, thousands of long serving and loyal HSBC staff were served with the news that their final salary pension scheme would be scrapped<\/a>, leaving many low-wage workers barely scraping by with the prospect of continued hardship in retirement.
\nThe bank also announced it would slash holidays by two days a year and also cut sick pay.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite national officer Dominic Hook argued at the time that the amount the money claimed it would save from attacking its staff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s terms and conditions, estimated at \u00c2\u014146m, was a drop in the ocean compared to what those at the top were earning in bonuses alone.<\/p>\n

 
\n“204 employees at the bank are pocketing bonuses almost four times more than the savings the company is making by attacking pensions and holidays – it’s an outrage,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he noted.<\/p>\n

 
\nShameless misconduct<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nThese relentless attacks on the workforce and customers have occurred against a backdrop of shameless boardroom misconduct. Story after story has revealed a brazen top brass culture in which senior executives see themselves as above the law.<\/p>\n

 
\nMost recently, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been revealed that HSBC may have been implicated<\/a> in the current corruption scandal in which Fifa is now embroiled. Potentially corrupt payments allegedly transacted by the bank include a $1.2m wire transfer from Miami to an HSBC bank account in New York, which eventually ended up in an HSBC Hong Kong account owned by one of the implicated co-conspirators.<\/p>\n

 
\nNot even three months ago, HSBC made headlines<\/a> in yet another scandal \u00e2\u20ac\u201c leaked documents revealed that the bank had helped many of its wealthy clients evade hundreds of millions of pounds in tax.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd in 2012, HSBC admitted to facilitating money laundering for a Mexican drug cartel<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the biggest organised crime syndicate in the world.<\/p>\n

 
\nMexico\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s drug war has cost more than 100,000 lives.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd now, after committing to slashing thousands of jobs, the bank has threatened to relocate its headquarters, with some speculating it may return to Hong Kong. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a move seen as a ploy to pressure the government into dispensing with the bank levy<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a tax that contributes billions each year to the treasury and discourages banks from risky lending.<\/p>\n

 
\nShocked workforce<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nAfter HSBC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long line of iniquities, this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcement comes as a further blow to the workforce, who woke up on Tuesday morning (June 8) to find their jobs on the line.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bImagine waking up one morning to find your only source of income under threat,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Hook. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members were deeply shocked by the move \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it came as a complete surprise. The media has focused on whether HSBC will relocate or how it will rebrand its high street branches, but this is of little concern to staff.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey want some answers, and they want them now \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which areas of the bank will be impacted and how will redundancies be carried out?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite has demanded urgent talks with the chief executive of HSBC UK, which are set for early next week. Hook said that a top priority will be the introduction of a voluntary redundancy scheme.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou might be surprised to learn that HSBC doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually have a voluntary redundancy scheme,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Hook said.<\/p>\n

 
\nAs it stands now, redundancies are carried out at the bank on a performance, points-based system.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bBut the scale of redundancies staff are facing means that a voluntary system would be most practical and most fair,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Hook noted. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said the redundancies will come over a period of two years. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got plenty of time to do this properly, so that those who want to leave can leave, and those who want to stay \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s many loyal staff out there \u00e2\u20ac\u201c will be able to stay on.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe will demand that members are given answers about the impact on their jobs quickly and that the redundancies will be carried out carefully and fairly,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members deserve to be informed about every aspect of the process, and Unite will fight for this.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165
\n <\/p>\n

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The massive jobs cull announced by HSBC on Tuesday (June 9), in which 8,000 posts will be axed over the next two years, is only the latest instance of the bank\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blatant disregard for its most valuable asset \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the workforce \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the customers it serves.   The bank has presided over a string […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[32,322],"wps_subtitle":"Attack on staff latest in line of shameless misdeeds","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4455"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4457,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455\/revisions\/4457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}