Link: Businesses fail to make best of outsourcing
The merged union will provide ‘stronger resistance’ against outsourcing measures, however ‘market dynamics are so well defined’ according to Roxburgh, ‘that it won’t do anything more than provide a better service and ‘fairer’ settlements for anyone displaced due to outsourcing or offshoring’.
He added that the current negotiations between HSBC and Unifi regarding the bank’s plans to outsource more of its back-office functions abroad may ‘slow down’ as ‘Amicus brings more weight to the table’.
However Roxburgh believed that HSBC would not be diverted from its offshoring plans or strategies.
Unifi spokesperson Liane Groves said that it has always intended to bring together the trade unions working within the finance sector: ‘We’re hoping to invite some of the smaller unions on board.’
Groves added that the main reason behind the merger was to end ‘destructive’ competition between unions. ‘When we have a couple of unions working with one employer, then the unions compete against each other and not represent their members.’
Amicus currently hold 1.2m members, finance staff, IT, managerial and staff from the NHS. Just a couple of years old itself, Amicus was formed two years ago as a result of the merger between ‘white-collar’ union MSF and engineering union AEEU.