It is time for Bank of Bermuda employees to unionise, said Bermuda Industrial Union president Derrick Burgess.

Speaking just hours after the bank confirmed it was being bought by HSBC, Mr. Burgess criticised the deal, saying it could well come at a cost for the bank's workers and the Island as a whole.

"The workers have to be uncomfortable not knowing whether an e-mail memo is going to come down from corporate offices saying `get rid of this many people' and, you know how it goes they'd say it's from head office," he said.

"They have no feeling for the country or the people in the country. That's how big businesses run - you're just another number."

He added: "The bank owns a lot of real estate in Bermuda. For a country 22 square miles you can't afford to sell anything to a foreign large corporation. Normally decisions from a parent company are final - they make a decision and that's it. Globalisation I suppose and one of the side effects of globalisation is get the job done for as little as possible."

Mr. Burgess had warned days before the General Election that HSBC and the banks were in takeover talks.

He said then he was "alarmed" at the prospect and that he feared the loss of "hundreds" of jobs.

Mr. Burgess also claimed in July that the bank had met with former Premier Jennifer Smith's Cabinet seeking approval for the sale and had been turned down.

And he speculated that the bank had then struck a deal with the United Bermuda Party - promising four percent mortgages in exchange for approval of the take-over should that party become the Government.

Then Premier Jennifer Smith denied knowledge of a deal in the works.

Mr. Burgess would not be drawn when asked his thoughts that his party appeared to have approved of the deal all along.

"I haven't heard from the Government," he said. "I have no comment on that. A company with the assets and the financial ability of the bank - you can just about get what you want in a lot of places."

But he said he was "not surprised" the deal had gone through. "And I don't know at what cost it has gone through. Nothing has come out about the workers as far as their job security. I can tell you if it was a unionised place we would certainly ask some questions - all unions would look out for job security for their members. It's probably about time now that the bank staff become unionised because they need some protection at all levels. Most people in the bank would have been aware of it from when we first broke the story in July and I know they have not been kept abreast of what's going on."

He said that some staff had already lost their jobs and remaining staff were probably as "shocked" as the rest of Bermuda at the news, "and wondering what is going to happen next".

"You know what they say about a new broom sweeps clean?"

In June the bank fired 14 of its female employees last month because they sent "indecent" material through the office e-mail system.