Union meets RBS chiefs over job fears
Angry union leaders will meet bosses at Royal Bank of Scotland today to discuss restructuring plans that they fear could lead to 20,000 job losses.
The part-nationalised bank is to unveil the details later this week, but they are understood to involve selling off assets worth several hundred billion pounds.
It will trigger the dismantling of the empire assembled by the group’s former boss Sir Fred Goodwin by creating a new unit into which about £300bn (€339bn) of unwanted assets will be placed – sparking the job cuts speculation. RBS has already announced more than 2,000 job cuts this year.
Union Unite last night angrily attacked the “irresponsible leaking” of threatened job losses, and warned it would vigorously oppose any compulsory redundancies.
The aim of the scheme is to isolate the troubled areas of the business into a “bad bank” and allow the stock market to place a value on the remaining core operations.
Current chief executive Stephen Hester is not expected to place a figure on the number of subsequent job losses, but reports this weekend said as many as 20,000 jobs could go, equivalent to around 10% of the global workforce and in addition to thousands of posts which have already been axed.
Unite said it had a scheduled meeting for today with workers’ representatives which the union believed was the appropriate place to discuss any restructuring plans.
The union’s national officer Rob MacGregor said: “This is already an extremely worrying time for finance workers, so it is distressing for staff at RBS to hear rumours of more job losses like this. We expect a company like RBS to conduct itself more responsibly.
“Until we meet with RBS tomorrow, the workers and the union remain in the dark about the bank’s intentions. We will be making it clear, however, to management that we will be vigorously opposing any compulsory redundancies and any attempt to outsource UK jobs.
“Our priority is to defend our members’ jobs, and we will be seeking an urgent meeting with the Government to press that where the state has a stake in banks, as it does with RBS, that there is a duty to ensure that any change process is managed in an orderly and humane manner.”
RBS’s plans are due to be unveiled on Thursday, at the same time as RBS announces Britain’s biggest corporate loss of up to £28bn (€31.6bn) and cost cuts worth around £1bn (€1.13bn) a year.
The overhaul will leave RBS with businesses such as NatWest and Direct Line, plus parts of US retail banking subsidiary Citizens and key investment banking operations in places such as Hong Kong.
This week’s full-year results are likely to confirm a loss of between £7bn (€7.9bn) and £8bn (€9bn), as well as a write-down of up to £20bn (€22.6bn) on the balance sheet value of previous acquisitions, including ABN Amro.
RBS, which is 68% owned by the taxpayer, is also likely to place at least £200bn (€226bn) of toxic assets into the Government’s asset-protection scheme, which aims to protect banks against further losses.
Talks involving Treasury officials and RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, which is also expected to participate, were said to be taking place over the weekend.
