A coalition of civil society groups in the
country has vowed to use all legal means necessary to fight Diamond Bank over
its recent sacking of 400 workers.
The coalition, in
an email sent to our
correspondent on Friday by its spokesperson and National Coordinator, Citizens
Rights and Leadership Awareness Initiative, Mr. Peter Nwokolo, accused the bank
of not following due process as required by extant labour laws and
international best practices in the disengagement of the workers.
The group had in a statement released earlier in
the week accused the bank of falsehood, describing its explanation that the
workers were sacked because of their non performance as a lie.
It said investigation
showed that “most of the sacked workers had indeed obtained appraisal scores in
excess of the recommended score of 50 per cent and above, going by the bank’s
last performance index concluded in February 2016.”
Nwokolo, in his response
to an email from Saturday PUNCH, said the bank was yet to respond to a letter
sent to it by the group on July 11, which was addressed to its Managing
Director/Chief Executive Officer.
He, however, vowed that
should the group not hear from the bank on time, it “will take every measure
within the ambit of the law to ensure that the rule of law prevails and that
the sacked workers get their deserved pay off as required by relevant labour laws.”
“It is our considered
view that Diamond Bank as a responsible corporate entity understands that they
cannot afford to treat such a serious issue that concerns the welfare and well
being of Nigerians under its employment with levity and so we expect that our
demands should receive prompt and appropriate response,” he added in his email.
In its earlier statement,
the group had called on Diamond Bank to immediately “engage the sacked workers
in negotiations with a view to reaching an agreement on the terms of
settlement, so that the affected staff can move on with their careers, which
has been damaged by the negative reports of their sacking, which the bank had
deliberately and erroneously presented as a result of lack of productivity.”
The statement had further
asked the bank to retract its statements which it said “were aimed at
circumventing the rules in order to bypass deserved and unavoidable payoff,”
adding that some of the workers who had put in more than a decade in the
service of the bank lamented the negative effect the bank’s statements have had
on their careers.
It also called on the
bank to address “the blatant and unilateral deductions of already agreed long
term loan tenures from the bank account of the affected workers.”
However, when our correspondent
contacted the bank management, it denied sacking 400 workers.
A response in an email
from the bank’s Team Lead, Media Relations, Corporate Communications, Mr.
Ikechuckwu Omeife, said “only 200 staff whose performance scorecards were
adjudged to be lower than the minimum required to drive its strategic growth
plan for the business year were relieved” of their jobs.
The bank described the
downsizing of its workforce as “rightsizing” and as a core strategic exercise
in line with the bank’s growth objective and the will to optimise cost and
enhance value for the shareholders at the end of the business year.”
“The yearly appraisal is
a general industry standard and enables banks to prune their workforce and
prudently allocate resources for optimum result,” it added.
The Federal
Government had earlier directed banks in the country to halt the all ongoing
retrenchment of workers in the banking and telecommunications sector and even
threatened to withdraw the operating licence of any bank or company in breach
of the directive
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