Bank union to Najib: Ignore us at your peril

Prime Minister Najib Razak's continuous silence over Malayan Banking Bhd's (Maybank) exploitation of workers and anti-union attitude will further jeopardise the waning support for BN government, the National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) has warned.

Exhausting all channels to voice the woes of its members, the union is to embark on a roadshow to explain to its 30,000 members how Maybank has been exploiting the poorer workers and undermining trade union rights.

"If it is not stopped, it could spread widely to all Malaysian workers," NUBE general secretary J Solomon said in a hard-hitting statement issued today.

Solomon (left) accused the government-linked company of "boldly and brutally violating international standards of human rights, making a mockery of Malaysian laws and making wider an already huge income divide".

He added: "NUBE has, for one year, sent pleas to the prime minister. Yet, the prime minister has not heeded the pleas for help despite NUBE being a staunch supporter of the government."

NUBE has been demanding an 80-month bonus for its members since June 2009, on the grounds that they should be given the same treatment the bank's senior management has been enjoying annually for the past decade.

However, Maybank Non-Executive Employees Union (Mayneu), an in-house union of the bank, said the staggering demand was a gimmick by NUBE to stop its members from joining the new union, which was set up early this year.

In the statement, NUBE reminded Najib that the ebbing popularity ratings of the government were caused mainly by the "yawning gap" between the rich and the poor, rising inflation and continuous exploitation of workers by large corporations.

"With massive anti-union activities, reduced rights and diminishing real income levels, Malaysians are frustrated and this feeling is boiling over," the statement says.

Although pro-business government policies are the right thing to do, Solomon pointed out, they were being done at the expense of Malaysian workers.