Unite has held a meeting with its senior members from the financial sector to draw up plans to protect its members in the face of the credit crunch.
The union – Britain’s biggest, with 180,000 members working in the financial services – is to develop a charter to fight for jobs within finance.
Unite argued it would hold employers to account for their “disgraceful behaviour”, which has sparked unprecedented volatility across the market.
The union warned that following the nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley, the Lloyds TSB/HboS merger and last week’s emergency bailout, it would not accept compulsory redundancies in the banking industry.
Unite called for a fundamental overhaul of the banking system, with the introduction of tougher regulatory requirements, an end to the offshoring of finance work, and for those most to blame for the credit crunch to be held to account.
Graham Goddard, the union’s deputy general secretary, said there are hundreds of thousands of staff working for the financial services in branches, call centres and back offices across the country, and as they are not the culprits behind the credit crunch, the union is not prepared to allow them to become the victims.
Goddard noted that the union has many members at the most at risk financial institutions, and argued that as mergers and takeovers intensify, it was vital to protect them.
He also highlighted that for many workers within the sector, starting salaries can be as low as £12,000 a year.
He said: “Unite’s senior representatives from across the financial services are launching a campaign to fight for their jobs and their industry.
“We will use all our legal rights and political influence to campaign for job security and an end to greed and irresponsibility.
“It is time to hold employers to account. Their disgraceful behaviour and cavalier attitudes to lending and risk has brought a highly profitable industry to the brink of collapse.”
Fellow union GMB also called for bankers’ heads to roll. Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB, said: “‘Business as usual’ is over for the City elite that organised this disaster.
“They will have to get used to living on normal incomes and paying their taxes now that the taxpayer is propping them up and calling the tune as result.” n
