Staff at UK-headquartered neobank Monzo have told senior management they plan to form a union and ask the company to formally recognise it, the bank confirmed to Sifted. 

The United Tech and Allied Workers union, which represents tech workers, tells Sifted the staff who contacted management intend to join the organisation. It’s a branch of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), a British union with 190k members that also represents postal and telecoms workers.

The move comes against a backdrop of increased economic uncertainty and rising costs for workers in the world’s fifth-largest economy. 

In response to the news, a Monzo spokesperson tells Sifted that it “always looks after our people and ensures that they have a voice on the issues that matter to them. As well as through our own forums, we are always committed to support and engage with employees on what matters most to them.”

Monzo employs over 2,500 people, with the majority in the UK. 

In the UK, an employer has to formally recognise a union before management is obliged to consult it during things like pay and redundancy negotiations. 

Companies can choose to voluntarily recognise a union, or cases can be taken to an arbitration committee, which rules in favour of statutory recognition if more than 50% of the workplace are union members. 

Earlier this month, the neobank announced it was giving staff who earn less than £40k a one-off payment of £1,000. It is understood that Monzo customer service staff have been given an average pay increase of 10.97% this year.

There’s still a gender pay gap at the company — men earn 4.3p more for every £1 than women at present. It’s a big improvement from Monzo’s 2017 stat though, when men earned 52p more than women. 

Earlier this year, Monzo reported a 90% increase in revenue for the year ending March 2022, helping to narrow its losses to £119m from around £130m the previous year.

Freya Pratty is a reporter at Sifted. She tweets from @FPratty