Banks under ‘siege’ from trade unions

ZIMBABWEAN banks are under siege from ‘militant’ unions amid threats of ‘cat strikes’ at directors’ offices.

This comes as local financial institutions have been battling numerous challenges, including pressure from policymakers over service charges and liquidity problems arising from hiked statutory reserves – and just months after awarding their workers a 15 percent American dollar pay rise, which has been rejected by “unreasonable labour leaders” who want an extra 20 percent.

“The union and employers have deadlocked on salary negotiations since the second quarter of this year. Employers are arguing that the economy is so bad that they can not afford salary increases,” said Zimbabwe Banks Allied Workers Union (ZIBAWU) secretary-general Peter Mutasa, whose main argument is that “banks can afford because they are building massive head offices in northern suburbs and executives are enjoying opulent lives, which gives them a different picture”.

Zimbabwe Banks Allied Workers Union (ZIBAWU) secretary-general Peter Mutasa

“We have, therefore, been given a green light… through a secret ballot… to engage in various forms of collective (job) action (and) this can only stop once they accept our modest demand for the United States dollar salary component of (up to) to 80 percent (from 73 percent) and an increase of 20 percent,” he said, adding corporate leaders were “hiding behind economic mismanagement to deny workers of their fair share of remuneration in order to sustain their own huge bonuses”.

While Mutasa’s aggressive remarks came after Monday’s social media threats “to picket and besiege directors’ offices of Ecobank, CBZ Holdings, and NedBank” – ironically some of the best-paying institutions in the industry – many have expressed concern over the “legality and security of the targets” of such planned actions.

Further, they have expressed surprise at ZIBAWU’s “decision to plunge into this combative and potentially-destructive negotiating tactic or strategy by announcing deadlocks, and threats to strike now when the parties were still months away from January’s bargaining window”.

“We are not only baffled by these pronouncements and actions, if not dangerous grandstanding, and posturing, but view this as bad faith conduct by players from an industry where the minimum wage is US$600-plus and some of these institutions are already paying well above the union demands or wage levels anyway,” said a source, adding some “banks were even cushioning their staff through housing benefits”.

“While the Bankers Association of Zimbabwe has accepted and decided to sustain that 15 percent hard cash-award – hammered out of an early year arbitration process – we are shocked by ZIBAWU’s decision to start agitating now when the collective bargaining window – also informed by other factors such as inflation – is still 60 to 90 days away,” the source said.