Lagos — MINISTER of Labour and Productivity, Adetokunbo Kayode has resolved the face-off between the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) and Wema Bank Plc over the rationalisation exercise embarked upon by the bank in which not less than 150 staff lost their jobs last week.

ASSBIFI 's General Secretary, Jarvis Erhomosele, while briefing newsmen in Lagos on Sunday stressed that both ASSBIFI leadership and Wema Bank management were summoned to a meeting in Abuja on Friday to resolve their differences.

He said: "The labour Minister, while resolving the differences, urged employers of labour in the financial sector and other sectors of the economy to ensure that union officers are not the target of rationalisation exercise, noting that any attempt by employers to sack union officers would amount to disintegrating the labour movement "

According to Erhomonsele, though the minister acknowledged that employers of labour have the right to downsize or rationalise the workforce, when such need arises the law of collective bargaining and its provisions as indicated in section 20 of the Labour Act should be strictly adhered to in the exercise.

"At last Friday 's meeting, both parties informed the Labour Minister that a window of dialogue has already been initiated to look into the issues on ground and the minister commended the initiative and advised us to report to the ministry as soon as the matters were resolved and whereby we are unable to settle it amicably, we should not hesitate to let them know.

"The Minister also advised employers to desist from entering into any form of agreement with in-house unions, stating that it is wrong to do so, but rather advised that any issue relating to workers welfare should be discussed with the national secretariat of ASSBIFI in Ikeja as this will help reduce the conflicts of interest in the industry, " Erhomosele said.

In a related development, the ongoing mass sack of workers in First Bank Plc has been put on hold, following the intervention by ASSBIFI.

We gathered that the workers that were served letters two weeks ago have been recalled by management of the bank after the meeting with the leadership of ASSBIFI.

Management of First Bank Plc had earlier sacked over 450 workers, as part of the ongoing restructuring exercise, but claimed that it had provided an exit window for staff to retire voluntary.