The Force Open (FO) union called on the leaders of HSBC and its continental Europe branch, worrying about the fate of retail banking employees in France, whose sale My Money Group had been announced in June, learned AFP on Wednesday.
FO sent two open letters, the first dated May 19 and sent Noel Quinn, the bank’s managing director.
It concerns the employees of the retail bank in France, sold for one euro to the French bank My Money Group, a subsidiary of the American fund Cerberus, and criticizes a lack of visibility on their future, while the integration must last until the second half of 2023.
FO also denounces faulty IT, premises suffering from a glaring lack of investment, and incomplete staff with almost 300 vacancies for the network, or 10% of the workforce, creating an overload of work.
Job cuts that intensify the workload
In addition to the replacement of departures and investments in agencies, the syndicate claims that the entity selling My Money Group can communicate with the buyer.
In the second letter, addressed to the Managing Director of HSBC Continental Europe (CE), Andrew Wild, FO expresses concern about a steady decline in staff numbers for several years, and the future of the HSBC CE branch, once the sale of the network finalize.
These job cuts and the vagueness of the situation lead in particular to an intensification of the workload, an increase in malaise, a lack of prospects in the professions which will remain with a loss of meaning in the work, denounces the union.
According to calculations by Force Ouverte, the entity’s third largest union, behind the CFDT and CFTC, of the current 7,300 jobs, around 2,000 will remain with HSBC CE in France.
They will work for the bank dedicated to businesses, for the trading room, central services or even for insurance or asset management activities.
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FO also points to the lack of interest and participation, the low salary increase and a very unequal variable remuneration system.
Contacted by AFP, the group said that, regarding vacancies, it was conducting recruitment campaigns in a very tense labor market environment, and with a transition situation (…) which impacts our ability attract candidates.
Concerning the future of HSBC CE, the management reiterated its ambition to be the leading international corporate finance and markets bank in Europe.
Finally, on wages, the group acknowledged that given the sharply lower 2020 results, no collective wage increase could be granted in 2021, but that the recovery the following year had made it possible to increase more than half頻 wages.