The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Daju Kachallom, has resolved the industrial dispute between the Management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF); the domestic unit of the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) and the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Employees (NUIBFIE).
The Permanent Secretary had in a letter dated Thursday, June 22, 2023, invited the parties to a conciliation meeting on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. While NUIBFIE complied with the directive, the ASSBIFI unit of the Fund in flagrant disregard, embarked on an industrial action on Monday, June 26, 2023, picketing and blocking access to the head office.
While she warned the unions against unfriendly labour activities at the conciliation meeting convened at the Conference Room of the Minister of Labour, the Perm Sec expressed her displeasure and warned that the absence of a Minister did not constitute a breakdown of institutional hierarchy and order, to warrant disobedience to lawful directives.
She further conveyed deep reservations over the decision of ASSBIFI to resort to external help without exhausting the internal conciliation mechanism in the Ministry, over purely human resources issues, noting that it smacked of “mischief.”
Earlier, ASSBIFI wrote to the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation for intervention.
A source at the meeting quoted Kachallom as saying, “bad enough, not one person came to me to report these matters, or remind me and seek for resolution. All we started seeing were accounts on social media that bring the agency and the Ministry to disrepute.
“I summoned this meeting for a conversation that will be beneficial to all of us, taking all the issues one by one. I am open and will be fair to all. Your MD and ED Administration told me you have been meeting, in fact, met last Friday because I had to call them back from retreat to meet with you because I said my house cannot be on fire, having also been briefed by my Director of Trade Union Services.
“But you now bypassed all to go the office of the Head of Service. And everything is on social media and everybody is asking what is going on in the NSITF again. Again why NSITF? It is not good for us. You might think you are trying to achieve whatever you set out for, but to be honest, it would have been best if we had sat down and had this conversation before going public with your agitations. Not doing it smacks of mischief.
“You didn’t come to me but I called for this conversation because that is what we need to do. You have a wife, you have children, they quarrel and you make peace as a family. You don’t take it to your neighbours. Even though your MD said these issues have been addressed, it is obvious that some of them have not been addressed. Which ones have not been addressed?
“As I told her, there are issues that are immediate, there are those that are for medium term and there are those for long term. Meet your staff because we all have to come to an agreement on how to resolve them all. The management and staff must agree on them.
“We must resolve whatever they are, because to be frank, I’m not going to sit here and read you are on the streets of Abuja again, not when I’m Permanent Secretary. Not having a Minister in place for now does not mean dispute resolution has ceased. It is not Federal Ministry of Labour, please.
“When you are found on the streets, it is the Federal Ministry of Labour that people know because we are one. It is Federal Ministry of labour. It is not NSITF. Whether it is NDE, IAP or other of our parastatals , it is Federal Ministry of labour. We must all conduct ourselves properly.
“The management should not allow a breakdown of communication. You must communicate with the unions, engage them. But union members must also be aware that they are first and foremost members of staff and must shun every acts of indiscipline. There should be no space for indiscipline of any sort.”
Meanwhile a memorandum of Understanding which was meant to be signed by Com. Olusoji Oluwole, the National President of ASSBIFI, Com. Aboderin P.O and D.G.S Nnabuife for NUIBIFI as well as Maureen Allagoa, the Managing Director of the NSITF and Prof. Gabriel Okenwa, the Executive Director Admin on behalf of the NSITF could not be accomplished because of the disagreement over item four on the demands of the union relating to the coalescing of Deputy Manager and Manager levels to achieve a nine-tier grade level as obtains in the public service. Subsequently, the domestic unions and the management were mandated to meet on 7th July, 2023 to resolve grey areas before an enlarged meeting to be convened by the Permanent Secretary on 10th July, 2003 for the ratification of the MOU.
Furthermore, all disputed issues brought by the unions were resolved. Top among which is that the parties agreed that the unremitted deductions for Pensions and National Housing Fund (NHF) would be remitted in 15 months starting from July 2023 – September 2024, while an internal memo will be sent out latest Friday, 30th June, 2023 to inform staff of the availability of pay slips to be printed on request or sent electronically.
The parties also resolved that the unions will meet with the Management on June 30, 2023 by 10am to resolve tax issues. It was also agreed that promotion examinations and interviews for qualified staff members should be concluded on or before the end of August 2023 while the management was advises to advertise vacancies in future where necessary. The National Salaries Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC) who was also part of the meeting was finally mandated to monitor implementation and report to the Government in two weeks.
Earlier in the meeting which stretched far into the night, Prof. Okenwa raised the issue of the Stability Group, a splinter group of the domestic unit of ASSBIFI, numbering over three thousand staff and seeking for registration. The group had in a statement on Monday dissociated itself from the industrial action by ASSBIFI , accusing it of self-seeking agenda.
and then