Quest for profit has adverse health effects

THE culture of relentlessly pursuing excessive profits by financial institutions is at the expense of workers’ health, the bank workers union warned yesterday.

The IBOA has launched a policy document on stress in the workplace, which will be circulated to more than 1,500 elected IBOA representatives and the human resource departments of all the banks and financial institutions where IBOA has members.

IBOA General Secretary Larry Broderick said the union produced the policy document in response to the alarming increase in stress related calls from members.

“The financial sector’s relentless and obsessive pursuit of excessive profit is at the expense of its own people as short sighted goal setting sees the application of more and more pressure on staff as the only way to achieve ever increasing targets. This 'culture' in the financial services sector is causing serious health problems for many staff and is something that has to be addressed urgently,” he said.

Mr Broderick said the IBOA would be seeking meetings with employers to discuss the policy and challenge them to look at some of their own policies which, in many ways, exasperated stress in the workplace.

“IBOA will also be encouraging employers to be more understanding of the causes and consequences of stress and will be pressing them to put in place support mechanisms for staff who suffer from stress,” he said.