Unite condemns RBS plans to axe 2,600 jobs

10 May 2010

Unite today (Monday, 10 May) condemned the latest round of job cuts at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) which could see 2,600 employees in the retail head office function and insurance division lose their jobs.

Unite, the largest union in the country, said its members would be 'devastated' at the proposals which will see 2,000 jobs out of about 16,000 going over the next 12 months in the insurance division, which embraces such household names as Churchill, Direct Line, Green Flag and Privilege.

Also earmarked for the axe are 600 jobs at the retail head office function which will mainly be centred on the London and Edinburgh offices.

Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer for finance, said: 'Taken together, this is a devastating blow for a dedicated workforce which has worked very hard to turn around the fortunes of RBS following some disastrous decisions by the previous management.'

'Unite is completely opposed to compulsory redundancies and will be engaging continually with RBS throughout the consultation period to minimise redundancies, while calling upon the bank to manage these reductions outside of compulsory measures.'

Commenting on the insurance division job losses, Rob Macgregor said: 'Included within this figure of 2,000, it is understood that a reduction of about 500 will be achieved through offshoring, although the bank has confirmed that these would not be customer facing roles.'

'Unite is fundamentally opposed to offshoring, as well as compulsory redundancies.'

Commenting on retail head office function job losses, Rob Macgregor said: 'This is an eye-watering reduction of over 25% of the job roles within the retail head office function that currently employs around 2,100 staff.'

'This comes barely 12 months after a previous job-shedding restructure in this business area.'