Citibank employees cry foul over new pay plan

Taipei City councilors yesterday called on US-based Citibank to show its sincerity in solving an ongoing dispute with some of their employees over a new salary structure, or face a boycott.

New Party city councilors James Wei (魏憶龍) and Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) told a press conference held at the Taipei City Council yesterday morning that the multinational bank was abusing local workers' rights.

"Although we welcome foreign investors like Citibank to come to Taiwan, they still need to abide by Taiwan's laws and regulations just like local companies do," Wei said.

Wei's view was echoed by Teng.

"It's inhumane to drastically reduce an employee's salary in order to force the person to leave. It also violates the law to alter the salary system without first obtaining the consent of the employees," Teng said.

According to the Labor Standards Law (勞基法), any changes to a firm's salary system needs to be agreed upon by both the employer and the employees. The employer is also required to provide severance pay if it abruptly terminates a contract.

Both Wei and Teng said that they do not rule out the possibility of launching a campaign to boycott the bank and the services it offers, including its credit card service.

Chen Ho-tai (陳和泰), a Citibank assistant manager, said that the bank had unilaterally decided upon a new salary structure by reducing the monthly salary of 35 senior sales representatives at the credit card department from between NT$40,000 and NT$60,000 to merely NT$18,500, which is what entry-level employees are paid.

"I was completely shocked when they asked me to sign a consent form to approve their offer," said Chen who has been working at the bank for five years and is one of four who refused to sign the agreement letter.

The 35 senior sales representatives have an average of four years working experience and bring in about 200 to 300 new customers every month for the bank.

Although they had asked the city's Bureau of Labor Affairs (勞工局) to arbitrate in the dispute on April 17, the bank simply ignored the bureau's advice to issue severance pay to those who wished to leave, Chen said.

Visibly emotional, Yu Kuei-lien (尤桂蓮), a director who has been working at the bank for four years and had signed the agreement paper, said that the bank is actually making huge profits but had cited financial difficulties to justify the modification of the salary structure.

Angel Shen (沈美華), a Citibank assistant manager who has been working at the bank for five years, said that the gross profits of their department in 1999 was NT$1.4 billion, ranking them as the most profitable among all the Taipei banks that issue credit cards.

Nevertheless, Shen said, their salary has remained the same for the past four years.

Although no Citibank officials showed up at the press conference yesterday morning, the company later issued a written statement.

"The salary system was modified due to the alteration of our marketing strategy ... Most employees in the credit card department have accepted the new offer, while about 10 others are still negotiating with us. Although the April 17 arbitration produced no concrete results, we are currently evaluating the possibility of maintaining the original salary system as requested by some employees, to show our sincerity in working for a solution to the dispute," the statement said.