Bankers Taunt Nurses

Banker suspended after Sunday Mirror challenges Deutsche Bank over £10 taunt to nurses and doctors

by Nick Owens, Sunday Mirror 13/03/2011

A bonus-happy banker taunts nurses and ­doctors marching below by ­waving a £10 note...

Mistaking medics chanting “Save Our NHS” and “No More Cuts” for an ­unemployed mob, he ­sneeringly mouths: “Get a job.” A laughing friend shares his sick joke.

Last night the smirk was wiped off the banker’s face after the Sunday Mirror showed the picture to ­German giant Deutsche Bank in London.

Bosses at the firm where investment bankers are on a basic of £350,000 – plus ­bonuses averaging £54,000 – immediately suspended him.

Angry Dr Ron Singer, chairman of the Medical Practitioners’ ­Union, who was on the NHS Day X march on Tuesday, said: “It was shocking to see people acting in this way when we passed the bank.

“If it wasn’t for the greed of bankers the economy wouldn’t be in such a mess and there’s a good chance the NHS wouldn’t have to be making devastating cuts.

“We were marching for the rights of ordinary people. To be abused like this was sickening.”

Nurse Sonia Thomas added: “When I saw what they were doing – waving money at us – it left me so angry. They clearly have no idea of the problems faced by people in the real world.” The banker’s antics came in the week it emerged that taxpayer-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland is paying boss Stephen Hester £7.7million for last year, even though it made a loss.

And Parliament heard disgraced former boss of RBS Fred Goodwin has a super-injunction preventing publication of a story about him.

Barclays chief Bob Diamond will get £27million for last year, with his 231 earners getting an average of £2.4million each.

The 1,000-strong march was staged to protest against David Cameron’s plans – never ­mentioned in the Tory manifesto last year – to tear up the structure of the NHS to bring in more private enterprise.The protest passed Deutsche Bank’s City base en route to world-famous St Bart’s hospital.

The bank’s chief executive Josef ­Ackermann, paid £8million in 2009, has been a ­staunch ­defender of bank salaries.

His firm fought a long battle with the Inland Revenue to try and avoid its staff having to pay tax on bonuses.

The bank said: “These photos appear to show conduct that is unacceptable and ­unrepresentative of our bank.

“We have suspended the ­individual involved and will hold him accountable for his actions.”

nick.owens@sundaymirror.co.uk

Big Bonuses in the City - Nurses Face Pay Freeze

Stand up to Bankers' Blackmail

Thursday 03 December 2009

by Will Stone
Morning Star

Unison leader Dave Prentis has said bankers should "come down to earth and realise their world has changed"

Trade unions have urged the government to reject Royal Bank of Scotland bosses' blackmail and call their bluff over massive bonus plans.

The bank's board has threatened to quit if the Treasury blocks plans to pay out bonuses to its staff to the tune of £1.5 billion, despite having had to be bailed out to the tune of billions of pounds by the taxpayer.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber warned that the threats proved that nothing had been learned from the economic collapse only last year.

"The banks nearly brought down the whole economy only a year ago. Few would have survived without government or Bank of England help," he said.

"Yet now we learn that they are back to the bad old days when they confused their telephone numbers with what they were paid.

"Surely there must be a limit to the amount of champagne that even a banker can consume in a year?"

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis described directors at the bank a "disgrace" and called on them to "come down to Earth and realise their world has changed."

He said that, despite banks and financial institutions causing a collapse that has forced many thousands onto the dole, plenty of those claiming benefits would be happy to be able to find a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.

"It is outrageous that millionaire bankers are trying to blackmail taxpayers into paying them multimillion-pound bonuses," added Unison Greater London nursing officer Michael Walker at the union's London Nursing Conference in Lewisham.

"Nurses on many wards could state that, without a significant pay rise, they may be forced to leave nursing and therefore patient care could suffer.

"Yet nurses are not offered a pay rise, they are facing the threat of a pay freeze from millionaire Tories."

And Left Economics Advisory Panel co-ordinator Andrew Fisher added: "The government should respond to this blackmail with one word. Goodbye."

But the government responded with very mixed signals.

Chancellor Alistair Darling warned that he was prepared to veto the size of the bank's bonus pool after City Minister Lord Myners warned that at least 5,000 bankers would pocket more than £1 million each this year unless action was taken.

Lord Myners said there was "precious little evidence" that people at the top of the banks appreciated the "concern about these extraordinary levels of income."

He called on major shareholding institutions to tackle the issue immediately, before it was too late.

However, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson struck a different note, expressing support for the board and appearing to contradict the earlier stance taken by the Treasury.

"I understand the point of view that Royal Bank of Scotland directors are expressing - they have to remain competitive in the market in recruiting senior executives," he said, adding that bonuses "form an integral part" of remuneration packages for senior staff, although he urged banks to exercise restraint voluntarily.

A spokesman for the bank merely claimed that bonuses were necessary to operate in "competitive markets."

Morning Star