The career aspirations of contract workers in financial institutions appeared dashed as they have little or no opportunity to progress, IFE ADEDAPO writes
The feeling of unfair treatment and lack of career fulfilment by contract employees in the banking sector is of major concern to stakeholders, investigations have revealed.
Contract or casual labour came about as a result of reforms in the banking sector and it serves as a measure for the institutions to remain competitive by adopting cost-cutting measures to reduce expenditure.
The act of employing contract workers through outsourcing firms as a cost-cutting measure in the banking industry is in favour of the two parties – the outsourcing firms and the banks – involved, with the worker deriving little or no benefit from the arrangement.
In this practice, the outsourcing firms, who specialise in labour services, carry out recruitment of employees on behalf of the banks and the outsourcing firm gets a percentage from the salaries of the contract workers every month.
This enables the bank to minimise their costs and the outsourcing firm to maximise its profit, while the casual worker derives no benefit.
Discrimination between the contract workers and the permanent employees in the same bank is demoralising, according to the casual workers.
Some bankers, who spoke with our correspondent under conditions of anonymity, said they were working without hope for the future and the remuneration did not even measure up to their qualifications, explaining that the outsourcing firms employed them based on their lower qualifications even though they had superior certificates.
They lamented that some of them were better qualified than the permanent workers, but were being made to work for the same number of hours and carry out the same job description as the permanent workers but without opportunities for promotion and salary increment despite inflation in the country.
A contract worker with Wema Bank, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the subject said, “Those who graduated the same year with me within the same company are earning more than I do; they are being promoted, while I remain in the same position earning the same N50,000 that I started with five years ago.”
He explained that he and his colleagues were not included in promotions even though they were told that they would be converted to permanent employees after three months, adding that the entry level workers get promoted, while the contract workers were not considered at all.
“When I approached my boss in the office for an opportunity to be included in the promotion process recently, he told me it would be best to look for another job because there was no opportunity for contract workers to be promoted. Right now, I am seriously looking for another job,” the Wema Bank contract worker said.
Another contract employee, who works as Direct Sales Executive in Access Bank Plc, said he had been working for the past 10 years without promotion and he was not even aware that he was a contract employee until he started working.
Investigations revealed that banks involved in the practise included Wema Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Fidelity Bank, Diamond Bank, Sterling Bank and Ecobank, which employed the contract workers as direct sales executives, tellers, customer care executives and E-ambassador.
A source at Access Bank, who pleaded not to be quoted, told our correspondent that the bank would not want to join issues with the contract workers because they were not reporting to it, adding that anything concerning their welfare was being handled by their parent company.
The Head, External Communications, Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, said what the CBN was regulating was the fitness and competence of the prospective bank workers and not the status of their employment.
“We also check that they are not blacklisted for fraud or other unethical practices. The issues referred to are handled by other government agencies such as the Ministry of Labour and the Industrial Arbitration Court,” he said.
The President, National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees, Mr. Peter Okafor, expressed concern over the unfair treatment of casual workers in the Deposit Money Banks in a telephone conversation with our correspondent on Tuesday.
He said the act of employing workers who were not entitled to any form of benefit was unacceptable, adding that the contract workers were qualified enough to be treated the same way as the permanent employees.
Okafor said, “I am totally against the practice because it is inhuman. It is slavery of the highest order. It is a way of denying workers their entitlements or benefits because the workers do not have access to leave allowance and medical treatment benefits.
“The Federal Government is not helping matters because they gave the outsourcing firms the license to operate and casual workers who purchase items at the same price as their permanent colleagues are suffering as a result.”
In neighbouring countries, according to him, workers are not employed through outsourcing firms.
Okafor said the way out was to provide standard conditions of service because it was unfair for someone who had been working for 20 years to be on the same salary scale as a newly employed person.
The Human Capital Providers Association of Nigeria recently said that in order to reduce unfair labour practices among private employment agencies, a code of conduct was developed in 2013 in collaboration with Ministry of Labour and Productivity to improve their placement services for employment and to protect the right of workers.
Under the provisions of the code of conduct, the group said evidence of employee benefits would be part of the criteria for certifying an operator.
The President of the association, Mr. Neye Enemigin said, “We put a code of conduct together to self-regulate ourselves and this will ensure that if you are a member of HuCaPAN, you will not be engaged in unfair labour practices.
“For you to be licensed as a private employment agency in Nigeria, you must show evidence of pension, medical care and insurance for your workers because if the people are covered by all these, you can no longer say the person is a casual. The law says any employer who has 10 employees and above must make provision for pension,” he said.
He stressed that there were provisions for sanctions for those who did not comply with the provisions of the code, especially those who pay below the minimum wage.
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