Commercial Bank, BIU president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons said yesterday.

But he said neither they nor the union were happy with the bank's decision to make 39 jobs redundant. The bank, he claimed, had turned its back on the "ordinary people'' it was created to assist.

Bermuda Commercial, the smallest of the Island's three banks, last week announced it would cut its staff from 90 to about 50.

Managing director Mr. Richard Francis said the cuts were part of the bank's decision to concentrate on international business and high-balance accounts.

But he said the bank was not about to fold. It is profitable, he said, and the changes would make it stronger.

The job cuts affect 22 workers represented by the BIU, which has traditionally banked at Bermuda Commercial and is one of its largest local shareholders.

"We accept the fact that we have signed a collective bargaining agreement that has provided for a redundancy clause,'' Mr. Simmons said.

"The management of the Commercial Bank has moved to make 39 people redundant.

The union does not agree with the redundancies in principal, but the staff appear to be going along with it -- because they have been demoralised for some time and perhaps for other reasons.

"The position now is that the staff and the union will be working together to ensure that all of their entitlements are going to be granted: their severance pay, their vacation pay, the pensions, and any other outstanding monies.'' But Mr. Simmons said the union had a major philosophical difference with the bank.

When it was set up as the Bermuda Provident Trust Co. 22 years ago, he said, "its whole philosophy was to assist the working class, the ordinary man, into getting mortgages, loaning and saving their monies.'' Now the bank was no longer interested in local retail business, he said, it might just as well move its headquarters elsewhere.

Mr. Simmons said the union had always supported the bank, but became a shareholder through takeovers rather than through design. The union is now one of the bank's biggest local shareholders, he said, but has never sat on its board of directors because "we never wanted to be in a position of conflict of interest.'' "We put our trust in these so-called responsible businessmen who have run that bank onto the rocks. I'm most disappointed as a union person and certainly as a member of this community. I'm trusting that the ordinary man in this country will some day be able to build something and hold onto it.

"It's our job right now to keep our backs up against the wall and face our adversaries.'' Asked whether the BIU would consider selling its Commercial Bank shares -- valued at $168,000 in 1990 -- Mr. Simmons said: "We are looking at everything. It's our hope that the bank will succeed. We don't want to see that bank go down the drain.'' MR. OTTIWELL SIMMONS -- `the bank's whole philosophy was to assist the working class.'