ASSBIFI against retrenchments in Nigeria’s banking sector

Publié: 27 Janvier 2011
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THE Nigerian Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) has suspended its planned industrial action to allow for negotiations aimed at stopping mass layoffs in the banking sector.

According to media reports ASSBIFI is in discussions with Oceanic Bank, Unity Bank and Intercontinental Bank to find amicable solutions to the layoffs of workers by the three banks.

Should the negotiations fail, the union warns that it had perfected strategies to paralyse activities in the affected banks.

“For now, we are still giving them the benefit of doubt for us to continue to discuss… should they decide to extend the discussion, we have no option but to embark on industrial action,” the union’s National President Sunday Salako is quoted saying.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has given management of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc a seven-day ultimatum to rescind its unilateral decision to derecognise ASSBIFI. NLC President Abdulwahed Omar says the bank’s decision “is not only unacceptable to us; it is unattainable and it is something that we will rise to fight to end because it touches the very fabric of our existence.”

But management of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, maintains that its domestic branch of ASSBIFI-NLC, affiliated to Nigeria Labour Congress and the Union Bank Association of Senior Staff (UBASS) were not proscribed, but merely de-recognised because they were not registered trade unions in accordance with the law.