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The Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and
Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI), has said that it is helpless in the travails
of the staff of Union Bank as they are not members of the association.

The president of the association, Sunday Salako, said yesterday
that the it cannot do anything in respect of the general protest by the bank
staff and the recent layoff reported this week.

“Union Bank members of staff are not under us. They left our
camp since 2004 and have since been on their own. When they were here, they
used to have the highest number of staff members here then so there was this
thinking that they must produce the president of the association during any
elections and then there was a fall out. They say they are with NLC, and we are
not. So that is what happened” he said.

NLC to the rescue

However, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to which the Union
Bank ASSBIFI chapter is affiliated to has stated that it will not allow the
situation in the bank to degenerate. The labour union had on Monday directed
the bank’s management to reverse its decision not to recognise the union within
seven days.

Denja Yakub, the assistant secretary of the NLC said yesterday
that the union’s decision on the matter still stands. “Yes, that still stands,
and we are also aware of the 13 people that were laid off on Monday. We have
added that also to part of our demand. All these must be done with the given
time otherwise we are going to shut down the bank nationwide when the time
given elapses” he said.

“Workers have to be unionised, that is what the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) says” Mr Salako said. “If you read through ILO
papers, you will see that all workers have the right to be in Unions. Nigeria
is a signatory. The members of staff of some banks have been saying that they
want to join the union but the management did not allow them. Is there any
staff who will not want to join the union given what they are facing in the
industry now? Access Bank, GTB, Diamond, Stanbic, all these banks are not
unionised and the staff want to.”

“When we call for meetings and dialogues, the management would
be speaking on behalf of the staff; they won’t let them speak for themselves.
We are coming up with our own strategy now” he said.

On Monday, the management of Union Bank again laid off 13 of its
members of staff. Francis Barde, the spokesperson of the bank, in a text message
response, said the bank had 13 staff dismissed on Monday due to violations of
bank rules.

On December 15, Union Bank workers shut down operations
nationwide. Among the reasons adduced by the workers as listed on the handbills
they distributed were that the management was undermining workers’ solidarity
and constantly deducting workers’ salary for no specific reason, deducting tax
from salaries without no evidence that they are being remitted to the tax
office, putting wages of workers under assault, as well as moving deposit to
competitors, among others.