A STRIKE at the National Bank of Greece (NBG) arbitrarily called by bank employees union ETYK is now in its third week. Judging by what was said at last Saturday’s ETYK conference, the union has no intention of calling off the action it imposed against the will of the majority of the NBG’s workers unless it gets its way. The bank’s senior management has quite rightly refused to budge and is currently in the process of taking legal action against union members responsible for the strike.
It is highly unlikely that the dispute will be resolved in court, because any civil suit would require months, if not years, to be tried and a decision issued. However, the suit is an indication of the bank’s resolve to challenge a union that has never been challenged in the courts by the timid boards of other banks.
The other banks always gave in to ETYK’s demands to avoid the disruption caused by strikes, allowing the union leadership to think that nobody can stand in its way, when it wants something. This arrogance was exemplified by the way the strike was called at NBG, with union leadership resorting to methods that appeared unlawful.
First, the strike was called without a ballot of NBG workers being held by ETYK, as its charter stipulates. How ironic that the union which called a strike because the bank had violated an unconstitutional provision in the collective agreement was itself violating its own charter. The majority of the bank’s employees voted against the strike but instead of respecting the decision ETYK arranged ballots in all the towns of all its members – the overwhelming majority of whom work at the other banks – who voted in favour. Employees of the Bank of Cyprus and Marfin decided that their colleagues should stage a strike against their will.
This manoeuvre was to give a semblance of legality to the strike, but the ballots were held when the strike was already several days old. To stage the strike against staff’s wishes, ETYK boss Loizos Hadjicostis engaged in a form of sabotage – he ordered four workers at the bank’s IT department to walk out, taking with them the codes for access to and operation of the bank’s computer network.
No work could be done by the bank, while the employees, against whom the bank took legal action, refused to return the codes. This constituted theft, which should have been reported to the police.
ETYK has quite clearly over-stepped the boundaries of acceptable union behaviour with its bullying of NBG staff and underhanded methods, which are putting the Cyprus future of NBG and its staff in jeopardy. And all this, because Hadjicostis, citing an unconstitutional provision in the collective agreement, insists that ETYK’s approval was needed for the NBG to transfer four employees from its Greece operations to Cyprus.
This is the cause of the dispute – ETYK does not recognise the right of the bank’s management to employ EU nationals for its Cyprus operations, as if collective agreements took precedence over EU directives about the free movement of labour.
Last Friday, the new Governor of the Central Bank warned of the danger of NBG terminating its operations in Cyprus. Displaying his authoritarian mentality, Hadjicostis declared that the Governor had no right to speak on the matter. This was how brazenly arrogant ETYK’s dictatorial boss has become, without provoking even a mild word of censure from the other banks.
When the other bank bosses eventually find the nerve to speak out against this union tyrant it may be too late to repair the damage he has caused their industry. It remains to be seen what he has to do for them to see him for what he is – a public danger.
