Thousands of HSBC staff are expected to strike today in a dispute over pay, the most dramatic industrial action at a high street bank for eight years.
Members of the trade union Amicus voted by 68% in favour of a walkout in protest at the imposition of a pay deal which the union said would lead to a wage cut for thousands of workers. Strike action began at midnight.
Amicus has around 10,000 members at HSBC, predominantly working in branches although some are call centre staff. It said it expected "widespread disruption" across HSBC services.
The union also plans to have demonstrators outside the bank's AGM this morning. They will hand out peanuts to shareholders to illustrate their view on the current pay deal.
Rob O'Neill, national officer of Amicus, said: "Hundreds of staff have joined the union as support for the action is growing across the country.
"We and our staff regret any inconvenience that might be caused to HSBC customers, but all the efforts we have made to resolve this dispute have fallen on deaf ears. HSBC simply refuse to listen to their staff."
HSBC said it expected to keep its 1,500 branches open despite the walkout and that internet and telephone banking services would remain unaffected.
A spokesman said: "We're expecting to open every single one of our branches around the country.
"So far, this industrial action has had minimal effect. We've heard from our call centres, which operate different shifts from the branches, and they say that very, very small numbers of staff are out on strike, if any at all."
He added that at the bank's 800-strong call centre in Wales not one staff member had joined the industrial action. The union said it had called for strike action after the bank imposed a below-inflation pay deal and cut staff bonuses, a decision that Amicus said would leave many staff worse off than they were last year.
Of the workers represented by Amicus, up to 10% will get no pay rise at all this year and a further 45% will receive a below-inflation increase.
The union said that a worker joining the bank would earn only 28p more than the minimum wage, even though HSBC announced profits this year of £9.6bn.
The bank disputes the claim that it is underpaying staff, saying that 60% of its staff benefited from salary rises in excess of inflation. It said that just 1% of staff had received no pay rise and no bonus, almost all for performance reasons.
