Retrenched Unity Bank workers petition bank management

Some retrenched staff of Unity Bank Plc have petitioned the management of the bank on the nonpayment of their entitlements five months after their disengagement.

In a petition addressed to the Managing Director of the bank through their lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), the retrenched staff alleged that the bank’s management has “deliberately and for unjustifiable reasons refused to pay their exit benefits and entitlements, including all previously accrued entitlements prior to the termination of their employment without offering any explanation for the delay till date in flagrant disobedience to the extant labour laws.”

The petition, signed by one Dare Falana on behalf of other retired staff and dated September 11, 2015, threatened legal action against the bank if it failed to fulfil its obligations to the ex-bankers.

The petitioners further alleged that the bank paid some monies early September to a few of the laid-off workers, “but the payment allegedly fell short of the total benefits and entitlements due to those who were paid, while the rest were not paid at all.”

The retrenched staff lamented that while the benefits and entitlements of the top management staff affected were paid, those of the lower cadre were left unattended to.

But in a response to the petition, the bank, through its legal officers, Alaba Williams and Hamisu Sani, Heads, Legal Services Department and Legal Services respectively dissociated the bank from any wrong, maintaining that it places a premium on meeting its due obligations to deserving ex-staff of the bank in accordance with the bank’s policies.