Bank workers’ union Unite has launched emergency talks with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to challenge a bankâ„¢s decision to impose 1,400 vicious job cuts on its workforce, local media reported.
The job cuts are being imposed just a few months after RBS bosses gave themselves a £607 million bonus payout package.
Unite NEC member for financial services Agnes Tolmie told the Morning Star that the first thing on the agenda was to eliminate compulsory job losses.
But she said the union would be campaigning to “mitigate the whole of these job cuts.”
“These latest cuts are vicious in the extreme. This cut of 1,400 takes us to nearly 40,000 jobs lost in RBS since the crash in 2008”, said Ms Tolmie.
“A figure like that is the equivalent of wiping out an entire town. The bank bosses talk about the workers as if they are just numbers. But for every job lost is a person, it is a family that suffers”, she added.
“In the current climate how many of that number are going to find another job? There aren’t any jobs out there for them.”
Around half of the 1,400 roles that RBS wants to cut will come from the Gogarburn headquarters in Edinburgh as part of a plan to “restructure retail head office functions.
“It is an absolute disgrace to hear from people like RBS chief executive Stephen Hester that they deserve their multi-million-pound bonuses while our people are going to the wall.
“Clearly the gravy train is rolling on.”
The bulk of the remainder of jobs under threat are in London, with Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol also facing cuts.
MOL/HE
This article originally appeared on : Press TV