Unite condemns RBS plans to axe 2,600 jobs
10th May 2010
Unite has today condemned the latest round of job cuts at the
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) which could see 2,600 employees in the
retail head office function and insurance division lose their
jobs.
Unite, the largest union in the country, said its members would
be ‘devastated’ at the proposals which will see 2,000 jobs out of
about 16,000 going over the next 12 months in the insurance
division, which embraces such household names as Churchill, Direct
Line, Green Flag and Privilege.
Also earmarked for the axe are 600 jobs at the retail head
office function which will mainly be centred on the London and
Edinburgh offices.
Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer for finance, said: ”Taken
together, this is a devastating blow for a dedicated workforce
which has worked very hard to turn around the fortunes of RBS
following some disastrous decisions by the previous
management.
”Unite is completely opposed to compulsory redundancies and will
be engaging continually with RBS throughout the consultation period
to minimise redundancies, while calling upon the bank to manage
these reductions outside of compulsory measures.”
Commenting on the insurance division job losses, Rob Macgregor
said: ”Included within this figure of 2,000, it is understood that
a reduction of about 500 will be achieved through offshoring,
although the bank has confirmed that these would not be customer
facing roles.
”Unite is fundamentally opposed to offshoring, as well as
compulsory redundancies.“
Commenting on retail head office function job losses, Rob
Macgregor said: ”This is an eye-watering reduction of over 25 per
cent of the job roles within the retail head office function that
currently employs around 2,100 staff.
”This comes barely 12 months after a previous job-shedding
restructure in this business area.”
ENDS
For further information, please ring: Shaun Noble,
communications officer on 020 7420 8951 or 07768 693 940
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