Barely a week after the protest of disengaged workers of Wema Bank over alleged non-payment of severance benefits, another set of workers demonstrated last week at the corporate head office of the Union Bank Plc, on the same issue at Lagos.

The aggrieved ex-workers disrupted activities at the Union Bank head office for several hours over non-payment of their severance packages which they put at N3 billion.

The bank, thus expressed surprise at the development, saying it was not given any prior notice of the action.

According to the statement made available to The Tide by its corporate Affairs Department, the development on Monday came as a surprise as no prior notice was given by the aggrieved senior staff pensioners.

According to the statement, “it should be recalled that the current management of the bank came into office following the Intervention of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in August 2009 and has since not carried out any severance exercise to warrant any protest.

The management noted that the issues raised by the aggrieved pensioners were already a subject of litigation and this had been communicated to representatives of the group previously.

The bank is thus constrained to await the outcome of the court cases and cannot selectively address the perceived grievance.

 It continued, “however, the management assured pensioners of its commitment to dialogue as a means of fostering industrial harmony and would urge the individuals involved in the picketing to allow the law take its course.”