Mr. Speaker, yesterday employees and former employees of the CIBC launched a class action lawsuit to recover overtime pay allegedly denied them by the bank. These are tellers and other lower paid bank workers whose right to overtime may have been systematically abused in the bank's relentless drive for profits.
This is a bank that posted $2.6 billion in profits last year. This is a bank whose CEO brings home $6 million every year as a pay package. Talk about a prosperity gap, with a bank CEO making 200 times what a teller makes. And talk about sexual exploitation and systemic discrimination. Most of those affected are women, who in general make only 71% of what men make and occupy three-quarters of the lowest paying full time jobs. They cannot afford to work for free.
How can our chartered banks, which made record profits last year of $19 billion, to be exact, turn around and gouge consumers with ATM fees, shortchange their workers and discriminate against women?