BANK operations were on Thursday halted at Diamond Bank offices as Nigeria Labor Congress
made good its threat to ground business activities at the corporate headquarters of the bank at Victoria Island, Lagos.
The development left thousands of the bank’s customers stranded and angry, as they could neither withdraw across the counter nor use any of the bank’s ATM services.
According to reports, the grounding came on the heels of a two-month ultimatum by Labor to the bank, to stop casualising workers.
The ultimatum lapsed last night.
Officials of the bank said that their management had made light of the threat by NLC, and were caught unawares.
The workers, pleading anonymity, disclosed that the bank had hired a sizeable number of graduates, and turned them into casual workers on N50.000 monthly salary.
The workers said their casual status notwithstanding, the bank’s management had exploited the unemployment challenge in the country, making them work for long hours on end devoid of benefits.
The workers were full of praise to NLC for coming to their rescue.
It was also gathered that the bank’s top management had entered into talks with labour to secure an early resolution of the crisis.
On Tuesday the bank reportedly sacked about 100 of its staff, a few months after sacking about 250.