Bank tells staff: You can't have time off on Christmas Eve

Dec 21 2008 By Dave Higgerson

Some of the 400 staff complained to bank chiefs, only to be told they could take it or leave it.

"We thought we could knock off a bit early, get ready for Christmas and head down to the pub for a festive drink," Mr Thomas said.

"They wont have any of it."

But a spokesman for the company, which employs 700 people in Birmingham, said that the decision was entirely normal for the season.

"Some members of staff have worked extra hours over the year and are working in quiet departments, so of course they can go home early," Mark Hemingway said.

"But others working in busier departments will have to work through the day as normal."

A spokeswoman for the British Bankers Association said: "It's up to individual banks to decide their own work practices.

"But that said, I haven't heard of this happening anywhere else."