(L-R) Babatunde Ftate governor, presenting the Tax Compliance Award to Victor Eromosele, GM, Finance, Nigeria's LNG, at the third Lagos State Taxation Stakeholders' Conference as a recognition of LNG's compliance with tax laws in the state.

THE presidency may have launched a last minute effort aimed at averting a possible shut-down of Union Bank Plc, whose workers and management have been embroiled in intense labour row.  BusinessWorld Intelligence can reveal that based on the growing workers’ restiveness in the bank, the management of the bank, national executives of Association of Senior Staff of Banks and Financial Institutions (Assbifi) and the national executives of the NLC were last Friday invited to a meeting with Vice President  Goodluck Jonathan. The  presidency had during the meeting, which ended late Friday, directed that the management and the union should go back and settle the matter amicably and report to the NLC which will revert to the presidency immediately.With this, the workers will be holding a crucial meeting by 8am Monday morning to prepare for another round of meeting with management at 12 noon the same day.
Union bank workers are asking for immediate reversal of all the decisions taken by the bank concerning terminations and other disciplinary actions in the last few months.
Insiders in the bank had told BusinessWorld that the staff were getting ready to shut down activities in the bank after the seven-day ultimatum they  gave to the management of the bank expired January 4. The bank’s union refused to attend an impromptu meeting with the management last Monday because it claimed it did not get adequate notice from the management.
There are strong indications that the about 7,500 workers have plans to disrupt the normal transactions of the bank without declaring any form of work-to-rule in the process. The plan was to dissuade customers from coming into the bank so that the management will quickly listen to their demands.
This decision, our sources indicated, are direct response to the wave of terminations and dismissals the union had frowned at in the last few months without recourse to the collective agreement entered into by the parties. They indicated that the union is not against retrenchment of workers but are opposed to any form of restructuring that tends to marginalize workers who have served the bank for over ten years and whose cases had been tried before and rested. It would be recalled that about 300 workers of the bank have been dismissed in the last five months.
Our sources indicated that the actions would have started last Friday but for the meeting with the presidency. Another round of meetings will be held on Monday (18/01/10) with the management of the bank in an effort to review the outcome of the meeting with the presidency. The NLC said it is in full support of the position of the Union Bank workers and will offer them all the necessary support to actualise them.