By VICTOR  AHIUMA-YOUNG
THE Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and its civil society allies will today resume mass action and picketing of Union Bank Plc offices across the country over the management of the bank’s withdrawal of recognition to its  unit of Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions, ASSBIFI, affiliated to NLC among other grievances.

The mass action, which began nationwide on Monday, was suspended because of the public holiday.

This came as United Action For Democracy, UAD; Campaign for Workers Democratic Rights, CWDR; Education Rights Campaign, ERC; Democratic Socialist Alternative, DSM, and other groups have thrown their weight behind the mass action, calling on Nigerian workers to join in the struggle to free workers of Union Bank from authoritarian administration.

At the Monday’s picketing, the bank’s offices across the country including the Marina’s Head office, were paralysed by officials of NLC and their civil society allies.

The mass action and picketing left many of the bank’s customers stranded and in lamentation as they could not access the bank’s offices to transact their businesses

Mrs Funke Osibodu led-management of UBN appointed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, had since January 2011,been at logger ahead with NLC over management withdrawal of recognition of the bank’s umbrella body for ASSBIFI affiliated to NLC.

At the bank’s head office on Marina, Lagos, the picketers led by the President of NLC, Comrade Abdulwahhed Omar, barricaded the entrance to the bank’s building with two tankers brought by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas, NUPENG, and numerous labour buses which disrupted free traffic flow in Marina and other adjoining streets.

The head of NLC Industrial Relations Department, Comrade Owei, Lakemfa, yesterday told Vanguard that the picketing of the would resume today in line with the National Executive Council, NEC, of NLC directive that the action would be between February 14 and 18, as a first step and that it was the public holiday yesterday that suspended the mass action.

Meanwhile, more groups, Rights, CWDR, Education Rights Campaign, ERC, Democrative Socialist Alternative, DSM among others,  have been soliciting support for the NLC led action

Some of the groups are United Action For Democracy, UAD, Campaign for Workers Democratic

CDWR, in a statement by  Rufus Olusesan and Victor Osakwe, Chairman and National Secretary, respectively, read in part: “We hereby demand the immediate and unconditional reinstatement of all 13 sacked workers and recognition of workers’ right to freely belong to a union of their choice. Hence, we demand the immediately resignation of Mrs. Funke Osibodu or her removal by the Chairman of Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) in order to forestall industrial unrest.

We are in full support of the ongoing picketing of Union Bank by NLC and its affiliates across the federation that started on February 14 2011; our members and sister organisations across the federation in solidarity with NLC and Union Bank workers are fully participating in the struggle.

Hundreds of workers and members of pro-people organisations participated in the picketing. And this solidarity action must be sustained and deepened to include one day solidarity strike of all Bank workers in order to force the management to reinstate the sacked workers and recognition of workers’ democratic right to belong to a union of their choice.”