Johannesburg - Trade union Solidarity on Friday said it may approach the Labour Court to halt Standard Bank's retrenchment process if the banking giant does not immediately send a section 189 notice to the trade union.
This comes after the bank's announcement that it plans to retrench 1 200 of its permanent employees in South Africa, 300 permanent employees in London as well as 600 contract workers before the end of October.
At a meeting with Solidarity last week, the bank undertook to send a written notice containing all the information about planned retrenchments to the trade union.
However, Solidarity has still not received any information and on Thursday presented a written ultimatum to the bank.
"The Labour Relations Act clearly stipulates that an employer that is planning retrenchments must consult with all the unions involved, regardless of the number of members the union has," said Gideon du Plessis, deputy general secretary of Solidarity.
"Solidarity is now demanding that all the trade unions that have members at the bank should be properly informed, in terms of legislation, about the planned retrenchments and that everyone should be consulted," he added.
Solidarity is still questioning Standard Bank's rationale for the retrenchments. The banking group spends about R350m per year on foreign contractors, and foreigners receive almost double the remuneration of local employees with the same job description.
Solidarity is demanding that, in addition to information about the reasons for the retrenchments and the number of employees that will be affected, Standard Bank also provide complete information about the bank's financial state.
Another financial sector union, Sasbo, on Friday expressed dismay over the retrenchments.
Sasbo, which represents about 15 400 Standard Bank employees, has held two rounds of discussions with the bank since it first disclosed it was looking at possible retrenchments.
"We are astonished and extremely disappointed by what Standard Bank says is the number of employees it wants to dismiss in order to reduce its costs and consequently increase its profits," said Sasbo assistant general secretary Eugene Ebersohn.
"More than 1 200 permanent employees (about 4% of the bank's total South African workforce) are faced with possible retrenchment early in the new year. The affected employees are mostly at executive and management levels, but some clerical employees (about 400) are affected," he said.
"The biggest difference between the bank and Sasbo, at this stage, is whether it is in the best interests of society and our economy as a whole to cut jobs to increase return on equity (and) increase shareholders' value and profits," said Ebersohn.
He said Standard Bank was still highly profitable and its sustainability was not in question. It had normalised headline earnings of R8.93 bn in the nine months through to September.
"We do not believe such an aggressive plan to retrench staff is in the interests of anyone. The number of international shareholders in the Standard Bank Group stands at 43%, and this makes one wonder how much value is placed on making shareholders happy versus what is good for South Africa, its economy and its people.
"If these retrenchments happen, the country will also lose in terms of personal income tax, in the region of R250m per annum. This alone is also not in the best interest of society as a whole," he said.