HSBC employee relations head Seetha M Kumarasamy lodged a police report earlier this week against National Union of Bank Employees (Nube) picketers alleging “cyberbullying” and “rude and unprofessional” remarks during a recent protest.
Seetha said that the July 31 picket outside HSBC’s Bukit Bintang branch saw several placards containing phrases depicting her as “mentally insane”, “stupid”, “ignorant”, and “foolish”.
In her police report alleging criminal defamation, Seetha said that the signs had caused her personal distress, adding that netizens had condemned her after videos of the protest were circulated.
“This blatant cyberbullying and disturbance to my peace has caused me to fear for my safety,” Seetha said in the report filed at the Dang Wangi district police headquarters on Tuesday.
She added that her role was merely to facilitate relations between HSBC and Nube and that she had no power to make decisions in ongoing negotiations on industrial disputes.
Seetha claimed that besides the placards targeting her, one placard also accused the Bank Islam CEO of using religion to deceive workers, which she called a seditious act.
‘Baseless and incorrect’
In a response today, Nube general secretary J Solomon called the claims in the police report “baseless and incorrect”.
“Nube is picketing against 17 banks and HSBC is one of those involved in union-busting.
“The ongoing HSBC customer service banker collective agreement (CA) negotiation has nothing to do with the picketing,” claimed Solomon.
He said that Nube had to lodge complaints of non-compliance at the Industrial Relations Department and Industrial Court before Seetha commenced CA negotiations.
Solomon also alleged that HSBC was busting unions, harassing and bullying women Nube members, denying them the right to paid leave to attend training and denying a woman union branch secretary in Penang the right to paid leave to perform her trade union work.
He went on to claim that Seetha was involved in HSBC encroaching into the affairs of Nube, saying that she was now seeking public attention and sympathy.
“The union’s role in the picket is to create awareness and disseminate information. Nube cannot be held responsible if the truth is painful to the aggressors,” he added.
Nationwide picket
On July 21, Nube launched nationwide pickets to protest the “increasingly outrageous” ways bank CEOs commit union-busting.
It claimed that bank CEOs were denying their workers several rights including the right to work-life balance, job security, and freedom from bullying, discrimination, harassment, and sexual harassment.
Workers were also denied the right to fair remuneration, participation in union work, freedom from union-busting, the freedom to attend training on paid leave, and the right to have a two percent SST paid for workers’ family medical insurance, Nube added. - Mkini
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