Profitable RBS should end the jobs 'slash-and-burn' culture
The return to profitability of the Royal Bank of Scotland should herald the end to 'the slash-and- burn culture' that has seen more than 30,000 UK jobs go at the bank since 2009, Unite, the largest union in the country, said today (Friday 2 August).
Unite urges the incoming chief executive Ross McEwan to open a new chapter in the bank's history by stopping the unnecessary job cuts and attacks on terms and conditions, while letting the bank's staff share in the renewed profitability.
Unite national officer Dominic Hook said:
“We welcome the return to profitability after Fred Goodwin financially shipwrecked the bank.
“We call on Ross McEwan to stop the slash-and-burn culture that has seen more than 30,000 UK jobs go at RBS since 2009 – a third of its workforce.
“He should open a new chapter where frontline employees - who deal with the bank's customers and are not well paid, compared to the top bosses - are treated with respect and receive meaningful pay increases and bonuses as a reward for their continued hard work in contributing to the bank's turnaround.
“There is still some way to go to restoring trust in this bank – the poster boy for appalling bad management under Goodwin.
“Taxpayers need a fair return for the £45bn bailout that they funded.
“It is far too soon to consider selling the government's 81 per cent stake, so thought needs to be given to using RBS, which is majority owned by the British people, as the basis for a national investment bank to propel investment in jobs, house building and renewing the UK's crumbling infrastructure.”
RBS announced today pre-tax profits of £1.4bn for the first half of the year - this was up from a loss of £1.7bn the year before.
