A communications ban directive has been issued at HSBC by the Malta Union of Bank Employees.

The union said in a statement this evening it issued the directive, which comes into effect tomorrow, following a serious disagreement on negotiations of a new collective agreement.

MUBE said it was also seriously concerned with HSBC’s behaviour and attitude towards the workforce, which was undermining career prospects to hard working employees.

The union said it could not accept an intransigent approach to negotiations whereby the bank decided to unilaterally withdraw a collective agreement as agreed at the end of last August.

“No reasonable efforts to seriously negotiate have been forthcoming from the bank’s management. This has been also aggravated by unacceptably low increases in salary and mediocre bonus awards which emanated from a unilateral decision taken by the bank outside the collective agreement negotiations.

“While HSBC is adamant on holding back on local negotiations, MUBE is constantly receiving feedback that management is effectively spending much more on international recruits who are being paid ‘hefty’ financial packages and who seem to be leaving a negative impact on the balance sheet to the detriment of local employees.

“MUBE understands that this may restrict some services to customers and regrets any inconvenience caused,” the union said.