09 november 2020
21:09
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At Beobank, the unions are threatening to strike because they believe the management is not taking covid measures quickly enough.
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Because corona infections increased this fall and the sanitary situation was worse than in the spring, union representatives asked that Beobank take more measures. Last week, the common union front urged in an open letter to introduce at least the spring measures.
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Because they believe that too little is happening, the three unions are now planning actions. On Tuesday there will be a small action at the headquarters. If there is still insufficient response, tougher actions will follow. “Strikes are possible,” says Johan Nelissen, representative of the BBTK.
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The management of Beobank says that it is doing everything in its power to ensure that contacts in the offices run safely with sufficient protective equipment and awareness-raising. “The health and safety of employees and customers have always been the number one priority in this health crisis.”
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While the financial sector now only works by appointment, Beobank still keeps its doors open without an appointment.
Johan Nelissen
BBTK representative
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Yet the staff in the offices are worried, stressed and scared because they have been ‘working on the front line’ for months. ‘While the financial sector now only works by appointment, Beobank still keeps its doors open without an appointment,’ says Nelissen. ‘The staff thinks that customers too often arrive unannounced and do not always follow the rules. Customers even come along who should have been in quarantine. ‘
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Beobank emphasizes that banking services are essential and that for the branches ‘the explicit recommendation applies to work by appointment’, just as in the first lockdown. According to the unions, there is a clear difference: then the doors and shutters were really closed. Now the doors are open and everyone can enter, even for non-urgent matters.
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“An employee told me that 17 people had come in without an appointment in 2 hours,” says Nelissen. Because people also drop out due to corona, employees sometimes have to staff other offices. ‘That would be done on a voluntary basis, but in practice it is not always the case,’ Nelissen points out.
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In the open letter, the personnel representatives asked, among other things, that work should be done by appointment only, that there are no late evening openings, that the cash register be closed and that no replacements should be made in other offices.
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Headquarters
Rumors are also taking place at headquarters. Telework has recently become the norm there, but that took a lot of effort. While other banks were already in the process of reintroducing teleworking in October as corona numbers continued to rise, management just wanted attendance to be increased to 30 percent. In some departments even up to 50 percent, ‘says Nelissen.
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That the dissatisfaction is so great now is due to the previous history. ‘Beobank has always responded relatively slowly. It is significant that the bank was the last in the sector to have hand gel available, ‘says Nelissen. He emphasizes that there is now sufficient protective material such as plexiglass available.
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Beobank, a merger of the former Citibank and BKCP, is one of the top performers on the Belgian banking market. The subsidiary of the French Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe has more than 750,000 customers and just over 1,000 employees. Including personnel at self-employed agents, this concerns more than 1,500 employees.
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