By Chinyere Fred-Adegbulugbe

Friday, 7 Jan 2011

The banking industry may soon be thrown into another round of crisis, following the recent sacking of some employees by Intercontinental Bank Plc, Oceanic International Bank Plc and Unity Bank Plc.

As a consequence of the staff rationalisation exercise, the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions and the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees have announced plans to shut down operations in the three banks from Tuesday.

The associations have, therefore, advised customers of the affected banks to ensure that they conclude important transactions before Tuesday in order to avoid the hardship that may follow the industrial action.

The President ASSBIFI, Mr. Sunday Salako, said in Lagos on Thursday that the strike would not be called off until the workers’ demand of reversal of the sackings was met by the managements of the banks.

He said, ”All customers of Unity, Intercontinental and Oceanic banks should start making withdrawals from this moment because we will be closing operations in these banks and we will not leave their premises till all our conditions are met. All the provisions of the relevant Acts that govern employee-employer relationship in this sector must be complied with.

”The experience of Union Bank Plc should teach our customers a lesson; that is why we are providing this window and they should use this opportunity to make mass withdrawals to last them throughout the period of our action because we are going to close the operations of these banks.”

According to Salako, the action became necessary after the ultimatum the unions gave the banks to reverse their actions expired without any result, adding that everything was set for the commencement of the strike.

He said, ”Recently, we learnt that Oceanic Bank sacked some workers without following laid-down procedures. As we were trying to investigate this, we also heard that Intercontinental Bank had done the same by sacking about 200 employees, mostly cash officers and heads of operations. They said that they had promoted about 600 people, and therefore, they should do away with about 200.

“We believe that these activities are not procedural and are satanic and should not be happening during this period.”

Although he noted that the unions recognised the managements’ prerogative to restructure their organisations through staff rationalisation, he said that the recent exercises did not follow laid-down procedures.

Salako said, ”We, in this sector, have won over the practice of the union negotiating with managements in the exit package of affected staff, as statutorily required, before serving a single member the letter of disengagement. This is in accordance with Section 20 (1) (C) of the Labour Act and part II, (Section 1), Article 5 (b) of the existing industry-wide Collective Agreement, which explicitly requires that employers enter into negotiations with the national secretariat of the union to agree on the terminal benefits for affected members before executing any rationalisation exercise.

”Therefore, the latest disengagement of staff is unlawful, not procedural, unjust, crude and wicked.”

The ASSBIFI boss said that the unions had written to the ministers of Labour, Internal Affairs and Finance, as well as the Attorney-General of the Federation on the matter.

Source: Punch