“We suffered for that bank.
Sometimes, we worked during weekends. My husband would complain and I would
say, ‘I have to go, we don’t have another job’. Sometimes, I got back home by
10pm. We used our money to buy envelopes for customers. I spent all my youthful
age with you. I am not saying you should not sack me; of course, I am not going
to die in Ecobank but please pay me,” those were the exact words of a former
member of staff of Ecobank affected by the recent downsizing.
Some of the affected workers have
accused the bank of not complying with the terms of disengagement and also
slashing their severance package. Ecobank had earlier denied this in a
statement, saying only contract staff were dismissed and that it was not under
any obligation to renew their contracts which was due to expire July 31.
The bank said it had already made
“payment of contract cessation packages of over half a billion naira” to the
outsourcing firms which employed the contract staff but some of the people
affected revealed that over 300 permanent staff have been sacked in 2019 alone.
PERMANENT STAFF LAID OFF TOO
 |
| Some dismissed workers protesting at Ecobank headquarters |
A former official of the bank,
who simply identified himself as Ayodele,said that the company had
sacked workers on three different occasions in 2019. He said over 2000 workers,
both permanent and contract staff were laid off in January, May and July.
Ayodele said he was employed on
permanent basis and worked for the bank for 13 years until he was sacked on May
17. He alleged that the bank laid off over 350 permanent members of staff in a
bid to avoid promoting them.
“The bank has been claiming that
they sacked only the contract staff whose contract ended, that is not true.
Between January 1 and today, the bank has conducted three sack exercises,”
Ayodele said.
“The first one was in January;
they laid off people that they claimed have stayed beyond 10 years on a grade,
that is the people that the bank refused to promote. They said that they have
stayed beyond 10 years and that means those persons have not been performing.
“Nearly 1000 workers were
retrenched in January, people who fell into the category of staying beyond 10
years on a grade were affected. They were paid a certain amount, I can say
those ones were paid. It will be a lie to say that they were not paid. Then,
another set of people were sacked on May 17 that is the category I belong to.
Those ones were over 350, they were not paid what was due to them.
“They quickly brought the
Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and allied Financial
Institutions (ASSBIFI) president, Ecobank chapter, to send a mail to the entire
bank, that was like four days to the time that they were to sack us. We were
not pre-informed. I was a permanent employee of Ecobank and it is ASSIBIFI that
controls permanent employee union.
“The one that happened last week
Friday affected mainly tellers. Like in Ikorodu branch, out of 18 tellers, they
sacked 17. They then recruited another set of 13 contract staff without
experience.
“I worked for 13 years and wasn’t
promoted for nine years and that seems to be the story of many of those
affected. I was last promoted in January 2011. I was due for promotion when I
was sacked. In fact, I was supposed to be among those promoted last year.”
DELAYED PROMOTION
Another affected person
corroborated Ayodele’s claim, saying the bank failed to promote some members of
staff for decades. He claimed that when he and some of his colleagues were due
for promotion, the bank moved them to another department “so you now look like
a new employee”.
“They had to redeploy us from the
unit where we were. That is their tactic. They will redeploy you from the unit
where you have been performing and they know that you are due and move you to
another unit so you now look like a new employee in that unit,” he said.
“I was working in internal
control group (ICG). What the bank did was to move over 70 of us from that
(ICG) in August 2018 to remedial management department. The idea is that we
were due for employment in ICG so they moved us to remedial department.
“The way the bank operates is
that if you have spent like eight months in a department, it is that department
that is supposed to appraise you. What they now did was to make sure that the
remedial department appraised us after working just four months there. That is
against the practice and policy of the bank.”
‘POOR SEVERANCE PACKAGE’
The workers all said Charles Kie,
former managing director of the bank, had fixed N250,000 as severance package
for every employment year upon the termination of an employee’s contract.
However, the recently sacked workers said they got 30 percent or less of what
they had been promised.
“The severance package paid to
those sacked in January was fair. Even though, some of the people sacked in January
were not paid. They had to go to NASSIBIFI to lodge complaint and protest. Some
went to court. Eventually, they brought those ones back and paid them. This
May, that was when president of NASSIBIFI president entered an agreement with
management after having a discussion with the MD, on what we will be paid,”
Ayodele said.
Another affected official,
Akinleye Olusegun, who worked with the bank for 13 years, said they were
enslaved.
“We were shocked recently when
some people were sacked and some were left in the system though they are
willing to go by July 31 because the slavery is getting out of hand,” Olusegun
said.
“A colleague of mine that was
sacked in November 2017 spent more than 10 years in the system and based on all
performance, he was paid 800,000. So, we are expecting that people whose
service will expire by the end of the month ought to have been paid more than
that and the information we got was that the former MD signed N250,000 per year
for each person.
“I worked for Ecobank for the past
13 years and I got N672,000 as severance package. If somebody who worked for 10
years can get up to N800,000, definitely I should have got over N2 million.”
I SPENT MY YOUTHFUL YEARS WITH
THEM
Another staff identified as
Patience who worked at a branch of the bank in Ikorodu said she had expected to
be paid a minimum of N200,000 for each year she spent. She spoke of her plans
to open a shop with the sum she calculated to be over N2 million but got only
N577,000.
Patience said she was last
promoted as an Oceanic Bank official and that after Ecobank took over in 2011,
her salary was slashed.
“At the end of this July, some
people were thinking the money they will pay us, we will use it to go into
business. Most of us are almost 50 years old, we have spent 16 years. We joined
when we were much younger but there was no promotion,” Patience said.
“So we were thinking that at the
end of July, we would collect the money and do something else with our lives.
Some people wanted to stay for another two years before they were asked to
leave. On Friday, we called our contractors to ask what was happening and they
said Ecobank said they didn’t want us anymore. They asked us to sign a
clearance letter and our July salary would be paid. But some people were
getting N25,000 per year as severance package and that was shocking. We woke up
on Saturday morning to see the alert.
“I was working in front teller.
October will make it 13 years of working with Ecobank. When I calculated what I
was thinking of getting with what I was paid, I got depressed. We have been
hearing a story all along that that man was not going to pay N250,000 that he
may slash it down to 200. I calculated with that and I said two million plus is
OK. I will get a shop and put something there if I don’t get a job.
“When the new MD came, he said we
were going paperless but he has not made approval for any paperless thing. Some
of the money customers keep in that bank is because of our loyalty to them, it
is not because of the bank. A customer called and said I am removing my N15
million. I asked why and he said because ‘you’re not longer there. It is
because you’re there that is why my money is there’. And we kept that for you,
all you could do is say go home and you employed other people. What is wrong?
We are too old? Then pay me off. I have spent all my youthful age with you. I
am not saying you should not sack me, of course I am not going to die in
Ecobank but please pay me.
“What I got, I paid my rent and
part of the children’s school fees so I can have rest of mind. There is nothing
left.”
ALLEGED TWIST IN APPRAISAL
“The process of appraising any
staff of Ecobank is that you will appraise yourself and send it to your
immediate boss. You will agree and discuss. If he agrees with you on the score,
they will then send it to management. Then, there is this we called normalisation
exercise where your boss that appraised you and the representative of HR will
be there. Meanwhile, when they wanted to send us away, this last appraisal,
what they did was the MD himself went to the normalisation exercise and
prevented our bosses from defending the appraisal, apart from the fact that it
was not our normal unit where we spent eight months,” Ayodele said.
“All the appraisal scores, with a
maximum of five points, most of us got three but at the normalisation exercise,
they pushed everybody from three to one without any justification. That is what
they have been doing and we learnt that the exercise is going to continue like
that.
 |
| Akinwuntan attending to a customer at a branch of the bank in Lagos |
“We were paid 30 or 40 percent of
what we were supposed to be paid. They said it was due to appraisal. Meanwhile,
there is nowhere in the policy where it is stated that your severance package
will be paid depending on your approval. That thing just came up when they have
decided to post us to a new unit and they then went to make sure that we got
bad appraisal.
“We that were laid off in May, we
got less than people that were laid off in January even though we stayed longer
than them. That is the same thing that was done to those sacked recently. They
had an agreement with the former MD that they will be paid N250,000 for each
year you have spent in the bank and that is the basis of their protest. The new
MD just came, it was not even the outsourcing forms that credited these people,
it was Ecobank that credited them themselves.
“There was a person that had
spent 19 years and was paid N610,000, despite the fact that you were poorly
paid as a contract staff, earning about N70,000.
“Instead of N250,000 (for every
year they worked) Ecobank brought it to half of their monthly salary. So,
whoever is earning N60,000 will get N30,000 times the number of years you have
spent. So, if you have spent 10 years, you’ll get N300,000 and that was not
what was obtainable before. The contract staff that were laid off last year got
more before this new MD came in.”
Ecobank was said to have brought
in new contract staff to replace the sacked ones, contrary a move they did not
expect.
ANOTHER PROTEST ‘COOKING’
 |
| Some of the affected staff had taken to the head office in Victoria Island, Lagos on Thursday to protest the severance package. |
Raji Rasheed, one of those
sacked, said they were organising another round of protest.
“There is another protest
tomorrow at the head office by 5am, everybody should be there. Tomorrow is
going to determine who and who will get their money. I spent 15 years with them
and what they gave me is just peanut,” Rasheed said.
When contacted Gloria
Byamugisha, head of Ecobank human resources, for reaction, she said she would
ask the head of corporate communications to return the call but had not done so
as of the time this report was filed.
culled: TheCable
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