UK bank workers protest over "greed" of bosses

LONDON (Reuters) - Workers from Britain's high street banks demonstrated outside parliament on Tuesday, saying jobs were put in jeopardy while banking executives reaped massive bonuses in recent years.

The Unite union condemned what it called the "greed of banking bosses" while a committee of parliamentarians grilled four ousted banking executives over the events that brought Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS to the brink of collapse.

British-based banks have announced some 14,000 job cuts since the global financial crisis intensified last August and international banks with UK operations have announced tens of thousands more.

"They (the executives) earned very substantial bonuses over the last five or six years. They're not going to be signing on for job seekers' allowance any time soon," Cath Speight, Unite's national officer for the banking sector told Reuters.

"Our members are going to be the ones that suffer. They are going to want to know how they pay their mortgage when they've lost their job through no fault of their own," she added.

Unite is concerned that low paid financial services workers could have their bonuses removed while executives are still awarded generous payouts.

Speight said a growing public backlash against the awards for the highly paid were justified.

"There should be public anger. These bonuses are being paid to the people responsible (for failure). Some of our members earn 15,000 pounds ($22,200) a year and rely on the small annual bonuses that they are entitled to contractually," she said.

The four ousted executives apologized for mistakes they had made and said changes should be made to the industry's lavish pay system.

The union also wants the government to ensure that no British jobs are outsourced abroad by the banks who have become part-nationalized in the fall-out from the crisis.

"If any of these newly-funded institutions come anywhere near government with plans to offshore jobs, we want the government to say 'absolutely no way'," said Speight.

(Editing by David Cowell)