By Nelson Manneh
Staff of Guaranty Trust Bank resumed work on Monday, September 28th 2020, after embarking on two days of industrial action.
The Bank was rocked by this strike after staff expressed unsolved grievances over management’s failure to address their concerns.
The staff of the Bank commenced the sit-down strike on Thursday 24th September 2020, and demanded among other benefits, the restoration of their appraisal bonuses, promotion for those staff for 2020, medical insurance and their 15 percent performance induced payment.
This industrial action started way back in July 2020 but it was dismissed when the Central Bank of the Gambia (CBG) Management interceded and asked GT Bank staff to continue with their work, as the CBG strives to solve the dispute cordially.
The aggrieved staff have since then, continued to execute their functions hoping that their demands will be fulfilled by the Management of GTB.
Adrian Brian O’Rilley, one of the employees at the GT Bank, told this reporter that staff of the Bank, have commenced work.
“The staff are hopeful that Management will listen to their demands. The CBG and the Central Bank of Nigeria are taking part in the issue, to make sure our demands are fulfilled,” he said; that some of the demands made by the staff include medical insurance, personal improvement projects, staff promotion among others. Adrian said they are hopeful their demands will be met by the Management of the Bank because there is positive engagement going on between the relevant stakeholders including staff representative body of the GTB.
Alagie Ceesay a businessman and client of the GTB who spoke to this reporter at the Latrikunda Sabaji branch of the Bank, said since Thursday, he has been struggling to withdraw money from his account to no avail; that he needed cash at the time to pay for his goods. Ceesay said GT Bank should ensure they solve the problem once and for all; that he has already thought of opening another account with another Bank because what has happened to him these days, has jeopardized the competency of the bank.
Customers of the GT Bank could be seen in long queues as many of them said they were not able to do their bank transactions since on Thursday.