Kyndryl told RTL, on request, that Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL) employees would not be affected by the "rebalancing" at personnel level. The Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL) and the Luxembourg Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (LCGB) had earlier spoken of a "double betrayal", given that 24 people at Kyndryl are due to be laid off before 140 people from BIL transfer across on 1 September.
BIL signed an agreement with Kyndryl* Luxembourg in May. The transfer project, published in the commercial register on 7 May, states that "the entire spectrum of IT services" and 140 people are to be outsourced. The unions are alarmed, since the Kyndryl staff delegation had already been aware of the social plan on 9 July, while BIL only found out on Monday 17 August. On top of that, the staff delegates had, according to the unions, been effectively silenced.
BIL notes, first of all, that Kyndryl had announced in its May annual results a "rebalancing" of its global workforce, though the precise details of that or of a social plan in Luxembourg had not been known at the time. The bank insists that this decision was, naturally, Kyndryl's own responsibility and formed part of its own strategy.
BIL also points out that the expansion of its partnership with Kyndryl and the IT firm's decision to draw up a social plan were "not connected". The conditions negotiated for the transfer of BIL employees had not been called into question and would not be changed, something Kyndryl also confirmed. Those conditions, according to BIL, are "comparable" to those the staff currently enjoy at the bank. The OGBL had already told RTL as much at the end of July.
Today, however, the unions are complaining of a "lack of transparency" and a "breach of trust", which is causing considerable concern not only for those already working at Kyndryl but also for those from BIL who will be joining them on 1 September. The mood is very sombre, the OGBL and LCGB representatives who spoke to RTL said, and people are wondering what will happen to them in two years. Kyndryl, for its part, has sought to reassure them, saying it highly values the expertise, experience and vast knowledge of BIL employees, who will play an important role in Kyndryl's regional operations going forward.
The unions also told RTL that of the 140 people originally due to be transferred, only 130 are left, since 10 have either been let go or have already taken up their pension rights. Negotiations on the social plan are currently in full swing. For the unions, a social plan and any compensation attached to it are still better than the salami tactics used during the financial crisis, for instance, when banks laid people off in small numbers over time to avoid having to draw up a social plan altogether. Even so, they deem the way this has been communicated as unacceptable.
Kyndryl Luxembourg is a subsidiary of Kyndryl Holding, based in New York. The US firm was spun off from IBM in 2021. Kyndryl Luxembourg was originally registered here in 2004 under the name IBM Services Financial Sector SARL. Its annual accounts show that the company employed around 200 people in Luxembourg last year. Its net profit rose from €4.5 to €6.7 million in the space of a year. Kyndryl also paid almost €2.3 million in taxes to the Luxembourg state last year.
BIL had 1,611 employees on its books at the end of last year and generated a net profit of €210 million, more than half of what Spuerkeess or BGL BNP Paribas made. BIL's main shareholder, China's Legend Holding, has been trying to sell its 90% stake for more than a year.
BIL and Kyndryl announced an expansion of their partnership back in May, in order to accelerate the bank's modernisation against a backdrop of rapid technological change.
