Documents cited by Citi Business News reveal about 100 workers of agricultural development bank (adb) may be transferred, suspended and in some cases sacked by the bank for embarking on sit down strike early this year.
[contextly_sidebar id=”26KZClmuXYTTCftG3vQ3B8Xd6Ye5HJMs”]The workers under the instruction of the Professional and Managerial Staff Union and the Local Union of the bank on May 28th this year embarked on a sit down strike to press home their demand for the resignation of the bank’s Board members and the Managing Director, Stephen Kpordzih.
The strike was also to protest “the failure of the appointing authorities to nominate external investigators to support the BoG (Bank of Ghana) to unravel the truth.”
Correspondence from management of the bank to workers who took part in the strike cited by Citi Business News on 13th of October,2015 questioned why they went ahead with the strike despite an earlier warning stating that their action was illegal.
The letter stated ‘our records showed that you did not work. Your action took place after the Executive Head – HR had sent a mail to all staff, including you, on the said day, indicating to you that its attention had been drawn to an instruction purported to have been issued by the Union and directing its members to undertake a sit-down protest, which it found unmeritorious.
The said mail also indicated that the call was illegal and advised staff to go about their tasks as usual. I personally also sent a mail thereafter to all Retail staff, including you, asking you to open for service. Evidence of the said mails have been attached for ease of reference’.
The letter added that the workers in question ignored the directive warning them not to proceed with the strike and asked them to explicate why the bank should not take any disciplinary action against them.
‘You chose to ignore both directives and did not work on Thursday, 28th May.2015. Your action caused serious interference to our business resulting in substantial financial loss, inconvenience to our customers and damage to the Bank’s reputation for which we hold you responsible.
Kindly show cause why disciplinary action should not be taken against you’.
Citi Business News checks reveal workers in over 40 branches of the bank nationwide including all branches in the Northern region, Upper East and Upper West as well as some branches in the Brong Ahafo, Western and Greater Accra regions have been queried over the matter.
In all a little over 100 workers have received the said letter and the number is expected to go up to about 300.
ADB has a workforce of over 1, 300.
The bank in a letter to workers involved in the sit down strike on Thursday October 15,2015 said management will go ahead and take action against the workers for going ahead with the strike despite the National Labor Commission’s ruling that their action was illegal.
The dismissal is expected to affect all union executives as well as branch mangers that supported the sit down strike.
While others are expected to be suspended or in some cases transferred to other branches as part of the disciplinary action to be taken.
Citi Business News has learnt some of the workers in Accra have already been transferred to Tumu, Nkwanta among others.
Meanwhile all efforts to get the bank to respond to the issue all proved futile as text messages and calls to the Head of legal and Executive Head of HR of the bank were not responded to.
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By: citifmonline.com/Ghana
