Guardian

ASSOCIATION of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) and some staff of Ecobank Plc who were recently disengaged from the bank are now threatening litigation and protest, if their severance packages are not paid in two weeks.

According to Mr. Dipo Ojutiku, one of the victims, the sacked workers might also picket the bank if it remained adamant to its demand.

“For over two months, we were laid off for what the bank referred to as non-performance exit exercise. Our one-month salary in lieu of notice was incomplete and up till now, our severance package has not been paid, thereby subjecting us and members of our families to untold hardship.

“This is like beating a child and closing his mouth from crying. It is proper to give those whose appointments were terminated redundancy/exit package. The management of the bank has bluntly refused to pay us off, stating that we are consistent non-performers. As a result, they cannot pay us off because the disengagement was not a redundancy exercise, meanwhile, the sack letters stated that we were redundant,” he explained.

Consequently, the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) have had series of meetings with the management of the bank to mediate and resolve the crisis, all to no avail.

According to ASSBIFI, the union even suggested to the bank to apply similar exit package agreement used for the non-performance exit exercise in 2010 for the affected staff since both exercises are based on non-performance, but the bank allegedly refused, insisting that the bank would rather recall the affected staff than pay them off.

Stating further, another victim, Mrs. Josephine Egbagbare, recalled that a branch manager who supervised the construction of a branch from start to finish and grew the balance sheet to over N2bn within two years was redeployed and the branch closed and all the staff redeployed to other locations.  “A year after, the same set of staff were disengaged based on non-performance without paying them exit package after working for the bank for certain number of years with excellent performance.

“That means that the number of years including the staff performance was not considered at all. Some staff that are currently affected fall into this category.  If this exercise was truly non-performance driven, then the bank should painstakingly review the performance appraisals of the affected staff at least for clarity and posterity sake,” she stated.

As a result, the affected staff have vowed to sue the bank if they are not paid. ASSBIFI is also saying the same thing, adding that the bank will face industrial action, which will include picketing if it fails to comply.

On March 15, 2013, Ecobank Limited laid off 147 staff that cut across all cadres all over the country for what it termed as “non-performance”. Most of these staff were allegedly promoted recently for efficiency in their various departments.