Rapheal John-Lall

A fed­er­a­tion of trade unions rep­re­sent­ing RBC Roy­al Bank em­ploy­ees across the re­gion has been formed in an ef­fort to bet­ter meet the needs of work­ers in the fi­nan­cial group, David Mas­si­ah, a spokesman for the new group said yes­ter­day.

"We have lis­tened to the con­cerns raised by the work­ers of RBC Bank and we feel this is im­por­tant for us as a trade union al­liance through­out the en­tire re­gion. Al­so, it is im­por­tant where the bank op­er­ates to recog­nise us as unions and to re­spect the rights of work­ers," he said.

Mas­si­ah and of­fi­cials of oth­er re­gion­al trade unions spoke at a press con­fer­ence at the of­fices of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union (BIG­WU) in Barataria held to an­nounce the for­ma­tion of the RBC Trade Union Al­liance.

The new trade union fed­er­a­tion brings to­geth­er trade unions rep­re­sent­ing RBC work­ers across the re­gion to work on com­mon is­sues. Mem­ber unions are from T&T, St Lu­cia, Bar­ba­dos, Grena­da, An­tigua, Ja­maica and the Ba­hamas and have sup­port from the UNI Fi­nance In­ter­na­tion­al Trade Union which is based in Switzer­land. Of­fi­cials of the fed­er­a­tion yes­ter­day urged the man­age­ment of Roy­al Bank of Cana­da to com­mit to a re­la­tion­ship de­void of an­ti-union prac­tices and to hold open di­a­logue with em­ploy­ees.

Mas­si­ah called for new strate­gies to deal with po­ten­tial job loss­es in the mid­dle of an eco­nom­ic down­turn.

"You know about the merg­er be­tween RBC and RBTT and of course there was con­trac­tion of em­ploy­ment in the re­gion. With the trend in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor we know it is one of the things that will con­tin­ue to hap­pen and that is one of the ma­jor rea­sons for this al­liance," he said.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the new labour body said: "The RBC Trade Union Al­liance, with the sup­port of UNI Fi­nance, re­pu­di­ates the strat­e­gy adopt­ed by Roy­al Bank of Cana­da. In par­tic­u­lar, the use of an­ti-union prac­tices, and not al­low­ing work­ers to raise their stan­dards of liv­ing and work­ing con­di­tions. When work­ers in The Ba­hamas, St Lu­cia and Bar­ba­dos amongst oth­ers, ex­er­cised their right to take col­lec­tive ac­tion they faced dif­fer­ent an­ti-union tac­tics, in­clud­ing bonus­es giv­en to dis­suade peo­ple from join­ing the union, re­moval of peo­ple from a bar­gain­ing unit, in­tim­i­dat­ing emails to staff, stalling of union­i­sa­tion/recog­ni­tion process, and re­fusal to co­op­er­ate and meet with the union. In the Ba­hamas, sev­er­al work­ers have iden­ti­fied an­ti-union be­hav­ior, in­tim­i­da­tion and vic­tim­i­sa­tion from man­age­ment in many RBC branch­es; re­sult­ing in a to­tal lack of mem­ber­ship in the coun­try.

"The RBC Trade Union Al­liance de­mands Roy­al Bank of Cana­da to change this be­hav­iour of an­ti-union prac­tices through­out the Caribbean re­gion. We call up­on RBC man­age­ment to en­gage in an open di­a­logue with its work­ers' cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives, by meet­ing with our unions as a unit­ed group. There will al­ways be is­sues, but we can on­ly solve prob­lems through so­cial di­a­logue that can an­tic­i­pate and avoid sit­u­a­tions of con­flict; we must all work to­wards the strength­en­ing of the com­pa­ny and good ben­e­fits for its em­ploy­ees. The CIBC/FCIB Part­ner­ship Agree­ment, is a pos­i­tive ex­am­ple of col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween unions and cor­po­ra­tions.

"RBC work­ers through­out the Caribbean are unit­ed in an al­liance and will be meet­ing and act­ing to­geth­er to en­sure that the rights of work­ers are re­spect­ed and pro­tect­ed. The RBC Trade Union Al­liance is ful­ly sup­port­ed by UNI Fi­nance and its af­fil­i­ates in its call up­on Roy­al Bank of Cana­da to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its ac­tions and change its an­ti-union be­hav­iour."