Finance union Sasbo filed papers with the Labour Court on Monday to obtain an urgent interdict against Standard Bank retrenching staff.
“Sasbo, the finance union, representing in excess of 67 000 employees in the finance sector, of which 15 400 are employed in Standard Bank alone, has today [Monday] launched papers with the Labour Court to obtain an urgent interdict against Standard Bank,” the union said in a statement.
The bank was planning to retrench 1 145 permanent employees and 600 contract staff in South Africa. This amounted to 4% of the company’s total workforce in the country.
Sasbo wants Standard Bank to stop the retrenchment process.
“We want the bank to stop this process and continue engaging Sasbo to meaningfully explore all alternatives in an attempt to avoid these retrenchments,” said Sasbo spokesperson Eugene Ebersohn.
Standard Bank said it would respond after it had seen the court papers.
“Standard Bank respects South Africa’s laws and institutions. We will study the court papers and will respond in due course,” the group said.
The bank said last week the move was necessary to reduce operating costs, and look after the group’s long-term sustainability.
“Sasbo continues to maintain that the bank’s action is simply an attempt to boost its short-term profits at the expense of long-serving loyal employees,” said Ebersohn.
He said there were various other ways to cut costs, such as restricting executive increases and cutting bonuses due to be paid in March 2011.
“This in itself will go extremely far to reducing costs. We cannot accept that all these positions have to be sacrificed so as to allow the bank to generate short-term profits and increase shareholder value.”
The union said it had no option but to seek legal recourse. — Sapa