Port Moresby, PNG: Papua New Guinea’s largest bank, Bank South Pacific could be closed next week by disgruntled union members who are threatening strike action.

They claim that the BSP management has not resolved their outstanding demands, especially those related to the formulation of a housing scheme for its workers following their industrial action in 2007.

Bankers Union president Anton Sekum and general secretary Vera Raga called a press conference last week to announce the planned strike.

“BSP management is given two weeks from the date of this letter to resolve the log of claims and petition submitted. Failure to resolve this will give the union no option but to seek the approval of the Industrial Registrar to conduct a secret ballot and take industrial action. The forms of industrial action will be advised later,” Mr Sekum said.

He said the union in their petition demanded:

* A 100 per cent increase in housing allowance for grades 3 up to management staff to match current market rates;

* K220 housing allowance without preconditions for grades one and two bank officers;

* All matters of the MOU of November 27 between the bank and the union to be resolved; and

* All other outstanding matters including non-payment of shift allowance as per industrial agreements of 2004 and 2007 to be calculated and back paid.

Mr Raga said all normal process of dialogue with the management had been exhausted and BSP had only given “lip service” but no action. The BSP management’s public relations division was contacted by the Post-Courier last week to have the management confirm the union’s claims

 But they have been slow to respond. “All processes of dialogue have been exhausted. They have shown their commitment but resulted in nil action,” Mr Raga said.

 They are supported by the PNG Trade Union Congress general secretary John Paska who said they will support the bankers union in their industrial action.

He said BSP failed to meet the agreement reached and if it did not come back with a good response in 14 days, the bank could be closed by the industrial action of the union. Other issues included that non-citizen consultant must add value through passing knowledge to local counterparts within set timeframes and to terminate employment of an expatriate staff in the centre of a “kite flying” incident in BSP Lae Commercial section that ended up in a loss of K7 million by the bank.

They asked the bank to be fair on national officers whose losses below K50 had resulted in them being sacked.