BANK OFFICERS

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 92, 19 April 1920, Page 2

BANK OFFICERS

THE .GUILD IN BRITAIN.

The recent spread of organisation on trade union linea among the salaried staffs of the joint stock banks of , Great Britain, states the Manchester Guardian, furnishes one of the outstanding examples of the new enlargement of the scope, of trade uriion organisation. The -Bank Officers' Guild, which operates in England and Wales, has now well over 14.000 members, and there are similar well-organised -societies of a rather more militant type in Scotland and in Irelajid. The Guild is at present somewhat ostentatiously bsnt on proving its moderation to the bank directors, and is pressing strongly for the formation of a Whitley Council for the banking service as a whole. In other words, it is still in the stage of seeking "recognition" from its employers, and is doing its besfc to achieve this by tbe irse of persuasion rather than forcr.

In the early stages the Guild encountered strenuous opposition from the directors of many of the ba-nks, and Certain managers, who ventured to take a leading part in the movement suffered from more or less direct forms of victimv sk-tion. The bank directors ill many cases tried to prevent their employees from joining the Guild by forming assosia'^ons rigidjy confined to the staff of a particular bank. Even, where the associations were brought into existence, however, the result desired by the directors was not achieved; for even if they joined under pressure the "inside" staff association, the bank officials and clerks persisted in retaining at the same time their connection with the Bank Officer--.' Guild.

In- view of- the development of the Guild, the policy of non-recognition, although it is still in many cases nominally retained, has become in fact obsolete, andl the Guild has become a ,body really representative of the staffs of 'most of the principal banks. -It is obviously illogical for barik directors who are busily engaged in amalgamating and consolidating the various banking concerns to object to a parallel movement of general org;ini^ sation among: their managers and staffs.