On March 26, Chuck Prince, CEO of Citigroup, announced that the world’s largest bank will cut at least 15,000 workers. Prince also said that at least 14,000 additional positions will be lost to attrition or relocated from high-cost locations to less expensive areas.
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Roughly 8 percent of the bank’s 327,000 workers across the world will be greatly affected.
Most of the cuts will be placed on back-office workers and high-paid workers in management.
Citigroup, the world’s largest bank, argued that these job cuts are necessary for the benefit of the company’s maximization of profits. Citigroup posted at least $37 billion in profits in 2006.
One of the benefits that Citigroup is reaping is increased access to cheaper labor in economically underdeveloped nations. In India, 12,000 workers toil for Citigroup each day. This means that in order to maximize profits, Citigroup has replaced the jobs of U.S. workers with cheaper labor in oppressed countries.
Prince stated that his goal is to create a “leaner, thinner” Citigroup, which manly focuses on anti-worker measures for the benefit of the rich.
According to Ivan Feinseth, an analyst of Martix USA, “He’s [Prince] trailing everyone, and he’s got to increase the return on capital—it’s the key to everything he’s doing.”
One of Citigroup’s major shareholders, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has been recently pressuring the bank to perform the anti-worker measures. He declared, “We have to take draconian—and I say draconian—measures to control the costs.” (New York Post, March 27)
But cost-cutting concerns don’t trump the dispensation of enormous executive salaries. Prince got a whopping 13 percent pay hike last year. He now makes $26 million per year, and the bank has maintained its profitability in the global banking market.
Citigroup enjoys the largest share of the global banking market. Many underdeveloped countries owe it billions of dollars in loans with high interest rates. With the help of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Citigroup and other imperialist banks benefit from structural adjustment measures, which are placed on oppressed countries in order to make sure loan payments are made on time.
Structural adjustment measures place loan repayment above providing social services, education and other fundamental necessities for working-class people.
The capitalist class—especially those who control the banks and finance capital—controls nearly all the world’s wealth. Meanwhile, workers, who produce the wealth, are exploited. A tiny ruling class gets all the benefit for our hard work. International monetary organizations heavily exploit oppressed peoples for the benefit of the banking market like Citigroup and J.P. Morgan.
As revolutionary Marxists, we condemn imperialist institutions like Citigroup exploiting and firing workers on a mass scale. We know that bosses get rid of workers to benefit their bottom line—securing greater profits. And Citigroup’s bottom line comes at the expense and exploitation of hundreds of millions of working and oppressed peoples.
To truly take on Citigroup and similar institutions, it is imperative to continue the struggle for the socialist expropriation of the bank monopolies and all other capitalist enterprises. Only then will it be possible to assure that the global wealth is used to meet the needs of the world’s people.
