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FIGHT AGAINST INJUSTICE
By: Robert Ndubuisi McMaris
Country: Nigeria
I joined my first bank in July 1993 as a Secretary with national diploma certificate. The bank was founded in 1990. At first, the bank held out a lot of promises to all staff regardless of rank and discipline. But sometime in 1994/95, by a stroke of management policy all the Secretaries, office assistants, drivers, security officers were moved to a subsidiary organization established to supply the bank with very cheap labour (to fill in positions in the areas above mentioned). All such people who were formerly employed by the bank became contract staff.
The implication of this new policy was stripping all the staff involved of most of the benefits hitherto enjoyed in the bank. Such benefits as bulked medical facility, regular promotion, adequate salary review, superior employee status et-cetera. This policy was criminally executed as the consent of the staff involved was neither sought nor were they informed through formal communication. Most of the staff involved became disillusioned as the psychological trauma was difficult to cope with.
Unfortunately, none of those secretaries and others involved could rise up to challenge the injustice. Nobody wanted to lose even the contract arrangement in a Nigeria where unemployment situation has gotten to a terrific height. Nobody spoke in defence of the oppressed secretaries, et all. This issue also took up centre stage whenever the secretaries assembled for their sparsely distributed trainings. In 2001 alone, more than 12 secretaries left the bank for some other banks.
The bank on the other hand was doing very well with tremendous growth in profit and asset base. Till date, the owners pride themselves as running the fastest growing new generation bank ranking fourth among all banks in Nigeria.
On the eve of my resignation in 2001, I wrote to the executive management concerning the great injustice to a people who assiduously were helping the bank to grow. I made out copies to all senior managers and above (about 18 copies were circulated). The write up sparked up a number of issues:
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