Posted on 10/30/2012 7:57:09 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
UBS bankers in London were turned away from their offices on Tuesday and handed a letter putting them on "special leave", just hours after the Swiss bank unveiled a radical restructuring to axe 10,000 jobs. UBS' in London head for the pub after being turned away at office door. Bankers at UBS's London office were unable to get into the building on Tuesday after the Swiss bank unveiled a massive restructuring and 10,000 job losses.
Bankers at UBS's London office were unable to get into the building on Tuesday.
It was only when the UBS bankers had their passes refused that they realised they could be out of a job. Instead of being allowed into the bank’s City headquarters the traders were whisked to special offices on the fourth floor where they were handed an envelope containing details of the redundancy process.
“It was like a scene out of the Village of the Damned up there,” said one of the bankers.
“They said we would be getting two weeks paid leave and then we will be told what is to happen. I expect we’ll just get a call from human resources or lawyers telling us how much we are worth. We won’t be able to talk to our bosses.”
The impersonal letter and the manner they were treated was seen by some as an insult, by others as a natural result of current economic and political conditions.
“They are just shutting down the capital intensive side of the business. Switzerland has lost all appetite for risk.”
UBS said it had taken a one-time charge of SFr3.1bn linked to its restructuring plans and a debt-related charge of SFr863m.
but they still are getting paid?
I was there one time with my son and his family who live there, and the wife was very upset as her friend had become “redundant”. I asked what that was, and the friend was fired. Then the whole family talked of friends they knew who had become “redundant” and how awful that was.
I hope none of you become redundant (or get laid off or fired).
My guess is that this is related to that $2.3b trading loss that an alleged rogue trader is said to have run up.
I wish I had been treated as decently by large corps in the past when business slumped.
Gee, I guess these folks were really making themselves useful at the office. Imagine being so incompetent that your company is willing to pay you to stay away from the office!
It’s a risk-management solution. The thinking goes that, if they weren’t being paid, there would be a higher chance that one of them (or more) would try to take some sort of revenge. In the IT world, very often a sysadmin or similar will be given two weeks leave in lieu of two weeks’ notice, since the potential for sabotage is extreme, even if the parting is amicable otherwise (the worker being let go may try to manipulate things so that the company is forced to hire them back to fix something only they would know how to resolve).
You do, actually. 'Redundant' has a very specific meaning. You're asked to leave the company with no blame attached to yourself, and no suggestion of incompetence or misconduct. Under British employment law, in these circumstances you can't be summarily dismissed without payment. You're entitled to a statutory 'redundancy compensation', usually a week's pay for every year of service (although many companies offfer better than this in their employment contracts). You also have to be given a month's notice of redundancy, and must be paid in full for that month.
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