Today Finsec, the finance sector union, is delivering a 10,000 signature petition to Parliament demanding that our banks be forced to protect kiwi jobs. They have a strong point. At the moment, the government is propping up the banks through the deposit guarantee scheme, which guarantees not just customer deposits, but also interbank borrowing. The least they could do in exchange is promise to keep their staff in work, rather than sacking them in the puruit of even more outrageous profits (and our bank profits are truly outrageous - more than $2.5 billion in 2007 [PDF]).
This is an acid test of whether the government is serious about protecting jobs during the recession. Sadly, it is one that National is likely to fail.
