The National Federation of Bank Employees Unions said yesterday that it will launch a series of protests starting next Thursday following the dismissal of a deputy manager by TaipeiBank (台北銀行) last week.
"We will petition Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Aug. 1 to replace TaipeiBank President Jesse Ding (丁予康) when the city government's Bureau of Labor Affairs convenes a meeting to mediate the dispute caused by the incident." the federation's secretary-general, Han Shih-hsien (韓仕賢), told the Taipei Times yesterday.
"If that doesn't work, we will paralyze the bank's operations by mobilizing our members to bombard it with telephone calls," Han said.
Taipei City government has a controlling 45 percent stake in TaipeiBank.
Han said his federation would organize employees from all of the country's banks to establish a committee for the campaign.
"The firing is ridiculous. We see TaipeiBank's performance as a declaration of war to employees of all banks," Han said.
Huang Yu-yen (黃玉炎), a deputy manager of TaipeiBank's Yen-ping branch, was dismissed on Tuesday last week for "spreading propaganda against and humiliating" the bank's president, the bank said the following day.
Huang had used the bank's internal e-mail system on June 18 to send to other union members at the bank a letter opposing plans for the bank to merge with one of six other banks. Huang is a board member and spokesman for the bank's employees unions.
"The contents of the letter humiliated the bank's leaders. The bank decided to fire Huang in accordance with Article 12 of the Labor Standards Law (勞基法)," the bank said after it fired Huang.
The article states that a company can fire employees without notification if the employee's behavior "humiliates" the employers.
Huang, however, said he had been surprised by the dismissal.
"I have been doing this kind of thing all the time for the past couple of years. I don't understand what was wrong this time," he told the Taipei Times.
The federation held a demonstration against the dismissal in front of the headquarters of the bank on Wednesday last week.
Han said that there will be more mergers among banks in the future and employees must be entitled to express their opinions.
"If we don't fight for Huang, employees will be wary of speaking out for their rights in the face of mergers," Han said.
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