July 31, 2017
HFC Bank, a subsidiary of Republic Financial Holdings Limited has expressed its commitment to complying with the labour laws of Ghana.
This follows a demonstration by workers of the bank and the leadership of the Industrial Commercial Union (ICU) after management of the bank decided to severe legal working relationship following a rearrangement at the bank to outsource the services of 54 drivers of the bank across the country to Montan Limited.
A statement issued in Accra today by management of the HFC bank confirmed the intention of management to severe working relationship with the drivers and outsourcing them to a private firm.
“We can confirm that as part of HFC’s rearrangement measures, we have initiated a process of outsourcing our drivers and by extension making their jobs legally severed,” the statement said.
The management further explainedthat the bank has engaged relevant stakeholders and would not do anything that goes contrary to the labour laws of the country.
The statement said, “We have informed the staff and the union of our intentions and are engaging them in discussions to mitigate the effect of the severance and to pay the affected staff what is due them in line with Section 65 of the LabourAct, 2003 Act 651. Our Consultants are guiding us to enable us have a mutually beneficial process.”
It would be recalled that management of the HFC Bank recently decided to outsource the services of its drivers nationwide to a private firm which lead ICU and the workers to embark on demonstration this morning to seek a reversal of the decision and entreat management to comply with due processes of labour relations in the termination of the appointment of the drivers in line with Act 651.
The drivers were given a one-month notice ending August 31, 2017 during which affected persons will be paid 2 months for each completed year of service, and ADR Daily gathered that the company took the decision in order to cut down cost.
The decision by the management of the bank to terminate the appointment of the 54 drivers, according to our sources, was done without negotiations hence they (drivers and staff) consulted their mother union, the ICU to help them fight their course with management.
A highly placed source has hinted ADR Daily that the Republic Bank, which has acquired HFC Bank, was in the process of acquiring Capital Bank and UT Bank and would soon outsource its customer service as well as its tellers to Stratcom Africa and Montran Limited respectively.
The outsourcing of such services if fully implemented means that hundreds of staff of the bank will also lose their jobs.
The decision by management to severe the appointment of the drivers as well as the purported dismissal of customer service providers and tellers of the bank has caused a high level of apprehension among the staff.
By: Francis Tandoh/adrdaily.com
