A cashier at a Stateowned bank counts money Wednesday in Huaibei, East China's Anhui Province. Photo: IC

 

A number of ex-employees of two State-owned banks gathered in front of the two banks' headquarters in Beijing Wednesday.

It was the second gathering this week, with about 500 former employees of the banks having protested outside the banks on Monday.

The protesters claim that they were misled or forced into accepting severance pay and terminating labor contracts with the two banks about 10 years ago during reforms of State-owned commercial banks. They are demanding reinstatement to their former positions, as well as social insurance.

The protesters are mostly from second and third-tier cities. The majority of them were laid off from local branches of China Construction Bank (CCB) and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) around 2003 during massive downsizing of the "Big Four" State-owned banks, also including Bank of China (BOC) and Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), as part of wide-ranging reforms of the country's financial system.

Their employment with CCB and ICBC was terminated after they signed an "application for voluntary self job-hunting" and getting so-called "buyout compensation" from the banks.

The buyout compensation varied according to their length of service with the company. Most of the employees had worked for the banks for more than 10 years and many of them were in their 40s or older, so finding another job has proved difficult.

Feeling cheated

A former employee surnamed Zhao, who used to work as a chief cashier at a branch of CCB in Linqing, East China's Shandong Province, told the Global Times Monday that he was forced to terminate his labor contract with CCB.

In 2003, he and his colleagues were informed by CCB that the bank had to downsize in a bid to improve efficiency and that the downsizing would be completed in three years.

If they did not agree to take the compensation, which was 4,000 yuan ($652) for each year of their service with the bank, and leave in the first two years, they would be fired in the third year without compensation, Zhao said.

Zhao told the Global Times he had worked for CCB for about 26 years. After leaving CCB, he worked for a private company and later opened a small grocery store with his wife. Having to pay for his social insurance put a lot of pressure on him.

Similarly, Wang Hui, a former cashier, from Shuangcheng, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, terminated her labor contract with the local ICBC branch in 2004.

She was told that she had a low ranking at the company on the basis of leaders' estimation, so there was no job for her. The compensation was 2,500 yuan ($407) for each year of her service at the bank.

The ex-employees told the Global Times that in third-tier cities, the average monthly income of the two banks' employees is currently around 5,000 yuan ($816).

ICBC told the Global Times Tuesday that the protesters who gathered at the bank's headquarters in Beijing were ex-employees who terminated their labor contracts through agreements with ICBC's branches in various provinces.

ICBC said it was paying close attention to the issue and will provide solutions based on related laws and regulations.

CCB told news portal sina.com Monday that it had terminated the labor contracts with the ex-employees legally.

Downsizing plan

The reform of State-owned banks went through various phases during the country's reform and opening-up period. Commercial banks were reformed to make them more commercialized from 1995 to 2003.

Then, as part of preparations for getting listed, commercial banks started to downsize in order to improve their efficiency. During this period, a group of employees who were in their 40s or 50s left banks in different ways including early retirement or labor contract termination with compensation.

Southern Weekly reported in 2003 that from 1998 to 2003, the big four State-owned banks laid off 250,000 employees in total.

An unnamed bank worker told Beijing Youth Daily in 2001 that the majority of workers being laid off were middle-aged employees with a weak educational background, and most of the downsized branches were low in efficiency.

The ex-employees claimed that the buyout agreement was illegal, since the ministry of human resources published a notice forbidding buyout agreements in 1998.

Xiong Liesuo, a lawyer from Xiongzhi Law Firm, told the Global Times Tuesday that buyout agreements are hard to judge because there is not such a concept in the Labor Law.

Huang Leping, a lawyer from Beijing Yilian Legal Aid and Research Center of Labor said buyout agreements are a complicated issue attached to the reform of State-owned enterprises. There is no law directly related to it, but in fact it was widely used by State-owned enterprises during the downsizing reform, Huang noted.

The banks said the termination of the labor contracts was legal, as the termination agreement showed.

However, the ex-employees insisted that there was nothing "voluntary" about terminating their labor contracts, and that they were either "cheated or forced" into doing it.

Some ex-employees said the banks had told them they were not qualified to stay after grading of their performance or that there were not enough jobs for them.

Huang Leping said that bank documents about the downsizing showed that buyout compensation was designed to persuade employees to agree to the labor contract termination. Both Xiong and Huang said that it's hard to say whether the termination agreement is legal, but that it should be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

For example, in the case of employees who were told to take the compensation and leave or face being forced to leave without any compensation, they would be able to claim that their rights had been infringed upon, said Huang.

The ex-employees said they had asked for help and solutions for many years. Zhao said that he started to protest and ask for solutions since 2007. This is the fourth time he has come to Beijing.

They appealed to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls in May and were told they would get a response in July. However, they have not received any feedback, so they came to the headquarters this week to try and find a solution.

Zhao told the Global Times that there might be a bigger protest this weekend in Beijing.

 

原文链接地址：http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/800895.shtml#.UgJdztJTTrv

（编辑：谢越）