Bimbola Oyesola

Baring any last minute intervention by the Federal Government, Nigeria’s Organised Labour has warned it will commence a total shutdown strike on the banking sector nationwide from April 1, 2020

The threat is coming from the Association of Senior Staff of Banks Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFFI) which is planning to embark on an industrial action within the first quarter of the year in protest the refusal of employers in the sector to sign Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the union. In addition to that, the Organised Labour has threatened a fresh industrial action if by March 31, employers in the sector fail to review the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in line with extant law. The two labour unions in the sector, ASSBIFFI and the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees (NUBIFIE) with the support of the two labour centres, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC),  have put plans together to ground the sector in April should the employers fail to agree to the bargaining terms.

The President of ASSBIFFI, Oyinkan Olasanoye, said there has been a deliberate disrespect of Human Rights by some of the employers (Banks) contrary to the provision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which anchored three of Nigeria sustainable banking principles (July 2012).

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Already, the unions which had earlier threatened to embark on strike in January but with the intervention of the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, who called for a meeting for the unions to give more time.

She said, “At that meeting, we were given till March 31st to conclude all issues on the collective bargaining, and from our angle as employees, we have prepared our documents, but it saddens our hearts that till now employers have not called us, there have never been any meeting. On March 13, we were with the minister of labour and we called his attention to it that if by March 31 the banking employers did not come on table, we will go back to our strike threat.”

But Olasanoye, who said the unions have been stretched beyond limit said, “we are by this meeting informing our employers and the Federal Government that if they employers in the banks fail to come to the negotiating table as we have written them, by April, 2020 our unions with our parent bodies will join us to shut down operations.”