Frimley five sue Midland

Five ex-Midland employees brought the bank to court this week pursuing compensation for repetitive strain injury (RSI), writes Dan Sabbagh.

The five women claim their work, inputting data at the Frimley cheque processing centre, caused their condition.

Four of the five developed the condition when the union increased performance targets in 1991. Staff were expected to input up to 1500 items of data an hour. In reality, they input as many as 2,000.

The banking union Bifu is funding the action and will support 'another nine cases from Frimley'.

Midland said that it could not comment on the case, which is expected to take four weeks to conclude.