Exposed: How RBS HIRES Indian staff (on £1.19 an hour) as it FIRES UK staff
Two queues, 5,000 miles apart, and two faces of Royal Bank
THE Royal Bank of Scotland is recruiting staff in India on £1.19 an hour – while axing hundreds of jobs in the UK.
An investigation by the Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal that the bank – which was saved from collapse in 2008 by a £45 billion taxpayer-funded bailout – is paying its employees in India a ‘slave wage’ significantly below local pay rates.
We found graduate workers are being recruited by RBS and hired for around £200 a month – equating to just £1.19 an hour.
It comes just days after the bank announced it is to close a new swathe of branches across the UK – and that 800 jobs will be lost.
Now, RBS CEO Ross McEwan is to be grilled by the Scottish Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
Unite national officer Rob MacGregor said: ‘These are slave wages, absolutely appalling. If they get away with this, no RBS job in the UK is safe.
‘It is absolutely shocking – exploitation of the worst kind, and it is worse given the fact that companies like RBS say they comply with international standards in terms of salaries and working standards.
‘I would like to see how these salaries match up with RBS’s goal as being a fair employer. This is how they are managing to artificially drive down costs and make profits.
‘What’s equally shocking is that these are the very kind of workers the bank is letting go in the UK – they are being replaced with slave-price labour. ’
Yesterday, an undercover reporter from this newspaper attended a walkin interview in RBS’s office in Chennai, India. Nearly 100 people showed up for the recruitment drive.
An RBS supervisor told the interviewees the role was classified as a ‘customer tags operation’ (CTO) – more than simply answering calls or sending customer support emails – and that the salary would be 246,000 rupees, which equates to £2,700 a year. RBS say they pay benefits on top.
The average salary in Chennai is £5,000.
Graduates would be expected to work from noon until 9.30pm, five days a week, so their pay would actually amount to just £1.19 an hour.
The revelations follow an RBS announcement earlier this week confirming that 162 more RBS branches across England and Wales are to close – with 792 job losses. Scotland will also lose 52 branches this spring – with ten more potential closures proposed at the end of the year.
On Tuesday Mr McEwan will appear before MPs and be questioned over this latest closures and job losses. And following this paper’s investigation, it is understood he will now also be quizzed on the ‘exploitative’ treatment of the bank’s overseas staff.
MP John Lamont, a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, said: ‘To hear RBS are paying such a pittance to their staff in India is shocking.
‘They are not only undercutting workers here by making them lose their jobs, but also workers in India too – it is astonishing, and is definitely a line of inquiry we will now be putting to Ross McEwan.’
The Royal Bank of Scotland, founded in Edinburgh in 1727, became the largest bank in the world after aggressive expansion under Fred Goodwin – who was chief executive between 2000 and 2008.
But during the credit crunch in 2008, after a consortium led by RBS took over Dutch bank ABN Amro for £49 billion, the bank was driven to the brink of collapse. It received a £45 billion bailout from the UK Government, meaning taxpayers controlled a 72 per cent stake in the company. Since the crash more than 30,000 jobs have gone throughout the UK, and hundreds of branches have been closed.
Branch closures are believed to be saving the company as little as £9 million, while Mr McEwan’s pay package was £3.5 million last year.
Meanwhile, RBS is hiring IT, human resources and programming staff in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi – about 5,000 miles from Edinburgh.
Last month the bank reported a profit of £792 million for the first three
months of the year, up from £259 million for the same quarter last year.
This followed reports in February, showing a first annual profit in ten years of £752 million, compared with a £6.95 billion loss the year before.
Last night, Steve Middleton, chief adviser at Bank Confidential, an organisation for whistleblowers who expose practices at big banks, said: ‘RBS hiring staff on the cheap in India instead of keeping loyal, highly qualified staff in the UK, is abhorrent.
‘RBS is still a State-owned bank and it is disgraceful that the UK Government would allow RBS to exploit staff overseas.
‘It also shows the bank is willing to go to any length to make a profit.’
Last night, Scottish Tory finance spokesman, Murdo Fraser said: ‘Some will view these employment practices as exploitative at best. It’s unsavoury to see roles relocated from the UK to India at a fraction of the cost. Deploying recruitment practices like this impacts on RBS’s image as a global Scottish brand and it’s vital that anyone working for the bank is paid a fair wage.’
RBS said: ‘Royal Bank of Scotland does not recognise the figures put forward. Our recruitment process complies with Indian employment law and we are recognised as a responsible and ethical employer.’