Bank strikes in foreign countries

It is a natural course that banks without competitiveness are liquidated.

It is very hard to find bank strikes in advanced countries such as the U.S. and Western Europe. Also their financial institutions seldom have unions. They cannot even dream a collective walkout. Considering the fact that a bank is not a private company but a trustee taking others¡¯ money in its charge, bank strikes are unthinkable.

They all know that a bank walkout surely will court self-destruction of both sides of management and labor, since they cannot survive in the market without customers¡¯ trust.

In fact, the U.S. witnessed massive bankruptcies of insolvent banking institutions and their liquidations by public organizations from the end of 1980s to early 90s, but there were never repulsion to those measures. It was the general social sentiment to take for granted the liquidation of unhealthy banks and the employees¡¯ losing their jobs.

A reason the advanced nations have few bank strikes is largely attributable to the incentive system and profit-oriented culture taking a deep root in their society. The countries have employed the complete incentive wage system, under which one cannot know about annual compensations of co-workers sitting next to him.

That¡¯s why unions of local securities firms, which have a similar intensive system, are not so strong as those of banking institutions. If an employee is dissatisfied, he would leave the company for better conditions, instead of entering into collective action. In addition, since most of clerks of foreign banks are temporary workers, there virtually is no room for them to participate in collective action.

In advanced countries, mergers among banking institutions and subsequent layoffs happen very often. It means that such happenings give little impact on the society as well as individuals. When a bank loses viability, its CEO goes all-out to lure other strong financial firms in order to make its bank survive, even through he will be fired after the merger.