Bankers union lashes out against unemployment benefits decision

The bank workers union (Etyk) on Wednesday released a statement responding to the recent decision by the attorney-general, stipulating that former bank employees who left their positions by accepting voluntary exit schemes are not entitled to unemployment benefits.

The union said that this decision amounts to “targeting bank employees”, before adding that the union “will take every action to resolve this great injustice”.

According to attorney-general Giorgos Savvides, no unemployment benefit will be given to the 1,000 former bank employees who left their jobs on a voluntary retirement scheme with some collecting up to €200,000.

Moreover, employees who left the Bank of Cyprus, Hellenic Bank and Alpha Bank as part of the early retirement scheme were expecting the legal opinion of the attorney-general on whether they are also entitled to unemployment benefits, after having applied to the social insurance fund.

The specific employees are not considered to be unemployed in the traditional sense because they left through a voluntary plan, receiving redundancy and additional compensation from their employer.

In response, Etyk said that the opinion is provocative, unacceptable, and unjust, before alleging that “it is known that political circles target bankers, constantly serving their own interests”.

“At first they favoured the solution of redundancies, instead of the banks providing any schemes, then they thought of taxing the amount of these schemes, then they remembered to exclude bank employees from being able to receive unemployment benefits,” the union said in its statement.

“Before all this, the haircutting of provident funds took place, the individual’s share was not recognised, not set off with loans, as was done with all the bailed-in depositors; then the compensation was limited to 75 per cent, and then they set a maximum amount of €250,000,” it added.

The union said that as of yet, the Ministry of Labour has not approved unemployment benefits for bankers who chose to leave under the Bank of Cyprus’ voluntary exit scheme last July, before saying that there are indications that this will not happen.

The same is likely to happen in the case of bankers who left Alpha Bank and Hellenic Bank, which affects approximately 1,000 employees in total, the union explained.

The reason for this, the statement goes on to say, was a court decision in March 2022, concerning the case of an employee of a private company, not a bank, where, back in 2019, the Ministry of Labour rejected their application for unemployment benefits.

In that particular case, the court ruled that the 2019 decision of the Department of Social Insurance to reject the application of the specific employee to receive unemployment benefits was correct.

“It is clear that the above case had specific peculiarities and above all, did not come from the banking sector,” the union stated.

“That is why, when taking into consideration the aforementioned decision of the Department of Social Insurance in 2019, for the non-payment of unemployment benefits to this employee, more than 500 applications followed from bank employees, who left under voluntary retirement plans, all of which were examined and approved by the Department of Social Insurance,” the union added.

Because of this, the union said, it “cannot accept that the Ministry of Labour was acting illegally for years”.

What is more, the union said that “for more than 40 years, bank employees have been continuously paying all contributions to social insurance”, before adding that “one can even consider that they are a category of employees who are the lifeline of the funds in question”.

Despite this, Etyk said, the “extent to which bank employees have utilised these funds has been very limited over time and in essence, based on the philosophy of solidarity that governs social insurance, bank employees support or subsidize our fellow citizens, who work in other sectors and take advantage of this benefit much more often”.

“The 1,000 employees who recently left made their decision, assuming, based on the law’s long-standing practice, that they would receive unemployment benefits for 6 months or until they find another job,” the union said.

“Therefore, the feeling of gross injustice possessed by all bank employees is clear and justified,” the union added, noting that “some people should not hide behind details and find pretexts to target bank employees”.

Finally, the union said that it “cannot accept this injustice against its members, which is based on a decision that has so many loopholes”.

“We will react with all of our strength and do everything we can to remedy this injustice,” the union concluded.