A group of regional union leaders, led by Jamaica’s Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), vowed yesterday to challenge Scotiabank’s transitional programme across the region.

Six visiting trade unionists, who arrived in Jamaica over the weekend to join the BITU’s response to Scotiabank’s plans to transition three local service units to the Dominican Republic, said they were alarmed to learn prior to yesterday’s briefing that Scotiabank had announced overnight the sale of banks in nine Eastern Caribbean countries, as well as it insurance operations in Jamaica.

BITU President Senator Kavan Gayle accused the bank of “job trafficking”.

“What we call job trafficking is the act of bullying, selling or transferring of employees without clear justification,” Senator Gayle said.

He criticized the bank’s actions.

Gayle said that the unions consider the action as an immoral practice employed by enterprises operating across several countries, where positions and employments are transferred from one place to another or from one country to another, for profit without consideration given to its impact on the employees.

He alleged that it is a new move by multinationals to transition roles to where wages are cheaper and workers are not unionised.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/regional-unions-oppose-scotiabank-s-restructuring_150850