Lloyd’s insult to staff
Underlying profits for the Lloyds Banking Group, where the taxpayer is a 32.7% minority shareholder, more than doubled to £6.2 billion in 2013. However, workers who have helped turn the bank around have been given an insulting pay deal of just 2%.
No such worries for Lloyd’s chief executive Antonio Horta-Osório who gets a £1.7 million bonus on top of his basic salary.
Unite national officer Rob Macgregor said the bonus, on top of shares worth millions awarded last October, was “a kick in the teeth to hardworking staff who don’t know if they will be next in line for the chop from one day to the next”. Since the government bail-out in 2008, Lloyds has slashed over 35,000 jobs.