First Atlantic Bank Asked To Settle Staff

Odun Odunfa, MD, FAB

The Labour Department has urged management of First Atlantic Bank (FAB) to invite workers, who have been affected by the bank’s recent redundancy exercise to the negotiation table, to address concerns related to their exit package.

The Labour
Department gave the directive in response to a letter dated 20^th
May, 2019, which was submitted to it by John Esiape of Labour Matters Advisor,
representative of the affected staff in connection with the illegal manner in
which management of FAB axed some employees without negotiating their
accompanying exit packages.

Some of these
affected staff of FAB include pregnant women, nursing mothers and workers, who
are indisposed.

According to
the Labour Department, management of FAB officially informed it about a
redundancy exercise that was expected to affect some workers of the bank.

This was
after workers had been informed of the impending exercise at a meeting with
management.

“Consequently,
management was advised to negotiate with the affected workers on the matter of
their redundancy package and other terminal benefits in line with Section 65
(2) (4) of Act 651.

Section 65 of
the Labour Act states that employers during such exercises could only negotiate
with employees but not ex-workers.

The affected
workers were denied entry into their offices when they reported to work on 2^nd
May, 2019.

“We,
therefore, wish to entreat management of First Atlantic Bank (FAB) to comply
with this provision of the law by inviting the affected workers or their
representative to the negotiation table, if concerns have been raised by the
affected workers through their representative in the person of Mr John Esiape.”

In his
correspondence with the Labour Department, Mr
Esiape revealed that “at a meeting with management representatives on 14^th
May, 2019, we advised the bank to unconditionally restore the employee status
of the supposedly affected staff as a pre-requisite for meaningful
negotiations, which negotiations by law and practice, were not expected to be
conducted under duress.”

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