The collateral damage of the BES bank collapse is back in the news today after one of the hundreds of bank workers laid off in collective dismissals from the ‘good bank’ that morphed from the disaster leapt nine storeys to his death in a Lisbon suburb.
Alberto Lisboa, 54, had worked all his professional life in banking: starting at BES 29 years ago, and then being ‘absorbed’ into Novo Banco after BES crashed, writes Correio da Manhã.
But his new employer was under orders from Brussels to trim staff, and thus Lisboa became one of 600 to be faced with collective dismissal.
According to CM, he accepted the news in March and was home on sick-leave.
But this week, for reasons left open to interpretation, he leapt to his death from the ninth floor of an apartment block in Portela de Sintraã.
A source at Novo Banco has “lamented the incident” and answered CM’s question on whether the bank’s employees faced with collective dismissals were offered psychological counselling.
The answer ran: “Up until now, Novo Banco has not received any specific request in this regard. The compensatory package that was presented to all bank staff contained socio-medical services for the worker and his or her family corresponding to a lifetime SAMS (bankers health programme) or three years of health insurance, depending on their age.
“Also, from the beginning Novo Banco offered outplacement (professional relocation) to help workers find a new job, or structure their own business”.
Needless to say, there have been numerous media stories of workers who say their mental and physical health has been compromised by the block dismissals.
Some have talked of being ‘locked out’ of their jobs as they stepped out to have a cigarette (click here).
In all, over 100 are thought to have ‘refused to leave their jobs’ but these are due to be pulled over the next month as Novo Banco’s president Eduardo Stock da Cunha winds up his tenure to return to his ‘real job’ at Lloyds of London.
Meantime, in Madeira one of the many small investors who lost his life savings in the controversial BES bank ‘carve-up’ is apparently in a clinic recovering from cancer surgery, and unable, claims CM, to pay his medical bills.
