Two years after the dissolution of the employees’ union at the Laurentian Bank, an organization affiliated with the Quebec Federation of Workers (FTQ) is taking steps with employees of the Quebec financial institution in order to take the “temperature of the water “.
SEPB-Québec is making inquiries to see if there is any interest among bank employees in re-unionization in the wake of recent difficulties at Laurentienne.
Emails were sent this week to several hundred employees of the Laurentian Bank by SEPB-Québec and a web page was created to support the union approach.
“Whether in the technology office, in areas critical to the proper functioning of the service, on the board of directors and even, outright, in the presidency, all these upheavals will undoubtedly have consequences for you,” it is underlined.
Bank employees can also read that “the looming threat of the sale of BLC certainly does not reassure you and will probably have an impact on your working conditions. Many of you worked on October 2, despite the usual public holiday. Your management also announced a sudden extension of branch opening hours. New management inevitably brings changes,” it says.
“As soon as he took office, your new president presented a new three-part plan, then an objective of customer retention and growth, without once mentioning the consequences, positive or negative, for employees and their working conditions. . »
The SEPB-Québec executive director tells La Presse that he has already received “very largely positive” responses from bank employees. Citing strategic reasons, Pierrick Choinière-Lapointe however prefers not to quantify the number of responses received.
“We find it worrying, what is happening at the Laurentian Bank from the point of view of working conditions,” says Pierrick Choinière-Lapointe.
The fact that the bank recently emphasized employee experience is a sign that even senior management believes that employees are extremely worried, according to Pierrick Choinière-Lapointe. “And I understand them,” he said.
“We will look at how things present themselves and if we judge that there is sufficient desire to resume unionization, there will be a second stage. »
Stressing that today cards can be signed online, he specifies that a campaign that starts can progress very quickly. The filing of a request to accredit a union at the bank could already be done within two weeks, according to him.
In early October, the bank announced the departure of CEO Rania Llewellyn and Chairman of the Board Michael Mueller.
Three other management departures have taken place in recent weeks. The head of technology, the head of operations and the head of personal services have in turn left the bank.
These changes come as a central system outage occurred in late September. The bank had announced two weeks earlier that it had concluded the review of its strategic options, ruling out a potential sale.
The bank’s management assures that all its services are now operational after the outage and announces that to “support its customers”, the monthly service fees for September and October will be refunded.
Called to react to the approaches made by SEPB-Québec to bank employees, Laurentian management did not wish to comment on them.
A union was present at Laurentian for 54 years, from 1967 to 2021. At the time of the revocation of union certification by the Canadian Labor Relations Board, nearly 600 Laurentian employees were unionized.
In 2016, the union had nearly 2,000 members. This number subsequently decreased considerably after position abolitions. Laurentian Bank today has nearly 3,000 employees, including its managers.
1967: a union enters the bank
2016: first attempt at deunionization
2018: two more attempts at deunionization
2021: dissolution of the union on the fourth attempt at deunionization
