What’s become clear on the back of Accord’s membership drive in Connect, is that in exchange for getting access to staff to persuade them to join the union, it’s also agreed that the rights of Lloyds’ non-signers to protect their working hours should be ignored as part of bank’s shifts review.
We believe that the two are connected.
That is a bit rich because members will recall that when that non-signers case went in front of an Employment Tribunal, which we won and the bank had to pay out millions in compensation, it was Ged Nichols, Accord’s General Secretary, who appeared as one of the Bank’s main witnesses.
One of our major concerns about the relationship that exists between the Lloyds and Accord is the amount of personal information on staff that is being passed between the two organisations. It is a breach of the GDPR regulations for the bank to divulge personal information on employees to third parties. In this case, although they work hand in glove on most issues, Accord is a third party. We are in the process of gathering evidence on that relationship and will be writing to the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, setting out our concerns and asking that she look into whether the regulations have been broken. If the GDPR regulations have been broken, the Information Commissioner can levy fines and publish enforcement notices.
We are very interested to hear from members who have been contacted by Accord directly at work either face-to-face or via letter or email.
We will keep members informed of developments.
Members with any questions on this should contact the Union’s Advice Team on 01234 262868 (choose Option 1).