Just when you thought you’d seen everything – it turns out you haven’t!
Accord – the bosses’ favourite staff body – is losing so many representatives that it’s called on its friendly Banking Director to help with recruitment. One can only assume the Banking Director’s got nothing better to do with her time, unlike the thousands of front-line branch staff who are having to deal with queuing customers with staffing levels that are stretched to the bare minimum. If the Banking Director concentrated on that issue, rather than trying to prop-up a failed union, then perhaps things would be better.
We know that many of those representatives who have left Accord, in many cases to join us, are disillusioned with its ‘door mat’ policy of bowing and scraping to TSB’s senior management team and failing to look after the interests of staff. Could you trust a trade union to get the best pay deal next year, when it can’t even recruit its own representatives?
TSB is so concerned that Accord’s representatives are leaving the union that it’s offering to appoint and train new ones. In a recent letter Carol Anderson, Director, Branch Banking says that: “We will answer any questions you might have and provide further insight into the role….Ongoing training is provided and you will be supported to fulfil this role”.
Who would want to be a representative, or even a member, of a trade union that relies on the employer to do its recruitment and training? Could members be sure that private conversations with TSB appointed union representatives are not being relayed back to the bank. Would you trust a TSB appointed union representative, who’s been recruited and trained by the employer, to look after your best interests? No, nor would we.
We’ve communicated before about Accord’s financial dependency on TSB, but this is taking it to a completely new level.
Personal Data Breaches?
Another major concern about the relationship that exists between the TSB and Accord is what personal information on staff is being passed between the two organisations. It is a breach of the GDPR regulations for the bank to divulge personal information on employees to third parties. In this case, although they work hand in glove on most issues, Accord is a third party. So, what personal information does Accord pass to TSB, and what information does TSB pass to Accord?
We are in the process of gathering evidence on that relationship and will be writing to the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, setting out our concerns and asking that she investigate whether the regulations have been broken. If the GDPR regulations have been broken, the Information Commissioner can levy fines and publish enforcement notices.
We are very interested to hear from members who have been contacted by Accord directly at work either face-to-face or via letter or email.
We will keep members informed of developments.
Members with any questions on this should contact the Union’s Advice Team on 01234 716029 (choose Option 1).