Former Goldman Employees Form Union in Japan

[Omaha Steve]

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/former-goldman-employees-form-union-in-japan/?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

By HIROKO TABUCHI

TOKYO – A Goldman Sachs employee on Thursday recounted in a faltering voice how he toiled away in the back offices of the bank’s Japanese operations for nearly a decade before being told last year that his job was being eliminated.

He is now fighting back. At a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday, the finance professional said he and a group of former Goldman Sachs employees had founded a union to demand their jobs back in what lawyers said was a rare instance of organized labor in finance’s highest echelons.

“I would just like to be treated as human,” said the former employee, who said he was recruited by Goldman Sachs straight out of college and worked in operations before being laid off in August. He said Goldman Sachs representatives pressured him at combative meetings to take a six-month severance package, a sum he said was inadequate.

He appeared at the news conference in a mask and refused to give his name or nationality, only saying that he was not Japanese and using the pseudonym “Adam Lee.” He said he was concerned that identifying himself would jeopardize his chances of getting future jobs in finance.

FULL story at link.

[DJ13]

1. “I would just like to be treated as human,”