I refer to Peter Murray’s letter HSBC Worldwide Job Cuts And The Maltese Union (August 6).

I find it strange that the contributor has chosen to attack the Malta Union of Bank Employees and myself instead of venting his rage and frustration on the HSBC Group CEO in Canary Wharf, London when commenting on the impending 30,000 job cuts across HSBC Group worldwide.

Obviously, he has no clue of what I and my team at MUBE have been doing in the last 12 years, ever since HSBC became the majority shareholder in Mid-Med Bank plc, later renamed HSBC Bank Malta plc.

It may come as a surprise to Mr Murray to know that MUBE has ensured that, throughout this time, no one has ever lost his job at HSBC Malta thanks to a special agreement reached between MUBE and the bank, way back in 1999, that there would not be any redundancies and that, if any reductions will be necessary, these will be made through either natural attrition, or voluntary early retirement schemes, or voluntary redundancies or any such other scheme agreed between the bank and MUBE. In order to provide additional protection to its members, this agreement is enshrined in the collective agreement.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for employees at the HSBC Call Centre at Swatar because these are employees of HSBC UK and MUBE does not yet enjoy recognition because the majority is not yet unionised. We contend that it is now more important than ever that these employees have union protection and we are working hard in that direction. We understand Mr Murray’s frustrations at HSBC’s announcement and cordially invite him to come to our offices to share his preoccupations with us.