Controversy Deepens After Mass Sack Of Workers At First Bank, Affected Staff Threaten Court Action

Controversy is trailing the recent mass sack of workers by First Bank of Nigeria, FBN, as the bank and its affiliate contracting firm in read more.....
charge of recruitment, Whyte Cleon Limited, have given various reasons to justify the action.
The affected workers, reported to be more than 1,000, cutting across branches of the bank throughout the country have dismissed the reasons given, while criticising the process as defying due process and acceptable labour practice globally.
Initially, the First Bank spokesperson, Babatunde Lasaki, who confirmed the sack to The Next Edition, said the exercise was based on the outcome of an annual staff appraisal which sets a baseline to assess staff performance.
He said in line with the usual practice, those who met some key performance indicators and a scorecard spelt out at the beginning of the year about the job description relating to their offices were either retained or promoted for increment, while poor performers risked being sacked.
However, following the debate that has trailed the sack, First Bank management appears to have distanced itself from it, as it later said the sacked workers were not part of its workforce.
When Premium Times contacted Mr. Lasaki on Tuesday through a mail for further clarification about the sack, his automatic email responder machine directed the reporter to his colleague, who said those affected were not ”regular staff” of First Bank, but casual workers who were hired to provide support services to the bank.
The official who requested not to be named, as she was not authorised to speak on the issue, did not give further details.
She, however, re-directed the reporter to an official of Whyte Cleon Limited, the bank’s human resource recruitment affiliate, which carried out the sack of the workers.
Recent media reports said those sacked were mostly front desk tellers, account and clearing support staff, customer service officers and marketing associates who had put in between five and 10 years in the service of the bank.
Premium Times could not immediately verify these reports.
But, the workers, who insist they considered themselves bona fide staff of First Bank, by virtue of the official staff identity cards they carry and the conditions of service issued to them when they resumed work, insist the manner of their disengagement did not follow due process.
Apart from denying that the termination of their appointments was based on the outcome of a performance appraisal exercise, the workers said information about their sack was not communicated to them formally, but through short message service, SMS sent to their telephones on August 7, 2017, an act they alleged did not meet international labour practice standards.
The bank insists that apart from the text messages, all the affected workers were later issued formal letters of termination of appointment.
Besides, the workers said, contrary to what the bank would want the public to believe about the reason for their sack, the real reason they were sacked was that First Bank wanted to avoid being encumbered up with the provision of a labour law requiring employers to compulsorily convert their casual workers to permanent staff, with full benefits after their 10th year in active service.
Some of those affected who reached out to Premium Times to give further clarification on the circumstances of their unexpected exit from First Bank said the majority of those given the boot were non-core staff recruited between 2008 and 2015, most of whom have put in more than nine years in the service of the bank.