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In a letter entitled "Tax evasion: the banks should be held responsible, not the employees", Philip Jennings, Secretary General for UNI Global Union and Marcio Monzane, Head of UNI Finance call for immediate action to help the 10,000 Bank employees that have been wrongly accused of facilitating tax evasion. We publish here some extracts of the letter which was sent to the US Department of Justice, the Swiss Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank.



"On behalf of our 20 million members in 150 countries, we would like to contest the decision taken by the Swiss banks to send to the US Department of Justice a list of the names of 10,000 bank employees. We condemn this unfair and arbitrary action by the Swiss banks, complicit with the Swiss authorities, in sending these names. This has provoked a great deal of anger and stress, and is in all dimensions disproportionate.



The premise of this action is that these people have been accused of enabling US customers of Swiss banks to avoid tax in the USA. Our enquiries with our affiliates confirm that the list of 10,000 names is made up of people who had no executive authority whatsoever and who were employed to carry out ordinary banking duties in compliance with the banks internal policies. These people will now find travel to the USA and future employment prospects blighted as a result.



The responsibility for promoting and enabling tax evasion lies with the executive management of the Swiss banks. It is unfair to victimize the bank employees who are employed to carry out their banking duties in a defined setting. The boards of directors of these banks must be held accountable for the internal policies they agree.



UNI and its affiliates express our strong support to the Swiss unions and the Swiss bank employees at this time of distress. We welcome their action to protect the dignity and rights of bank staff. We now urge you to take further action on the following issues:



1. Regarding the existing list of employees’ names:

a. The employees that are on the list should at least be informed that their names are on the list.

b. All legal charges against these employees should be withdrawn and they should be granted immunity. There should be no negative consequences for their future professional careers, and they should not be debarred from obtaining jobs in other banks.

c. The employees should receive financial compensation for the stress and reputational damage inflicted.



2. The Swiss and EU banks should respect the legislation in place (including the Data Protection Act of Switzerland (1992), the US-EU agreement on personal data protection (2009), and the 2012 EU Data Protection Regulation applying to third countries such as the US and Switzerland). Before communicating any names to anyone on any issue, the employees should first and foremost be consulted.



We will bring these issues to the attention of EU Commissioner Barnier when we meet him on 31 October in Brussels and with the Financial Stability Board on 16 November. "



See the letters in English, French, German, Italian in the Related Files.