By Austin Ogwuda
SCORES of customers of the Union  Bank Plc, were, yesterday, disappointed as they were unable to make any transaction with the bank following the picketing of the bank.

The state Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr Mike Okeme led officials of the congress to seal up the bank premises, yesterday, morning.

Okeme told reporters that the picketing was total in Delta “as you can see, all the Union bank offices both here in Asaba, Agbor and throughout Delta State are sealed. The picketing is hundred percent in this state,” he said.

Also, yesterday, secondary school teachers in Delta State under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools, ASUSS,  staged a peaceful protest in Asaba, condemning the continued deduction of check off dues of its members by the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, despite a prevailing court order restraining NUT from do so.

The protest took them to the office of the Head of Service, Mr. Okey Ofili, who promised to look into their complaint within the next one week.

State Chairman, Dr. John Nwachokor  presented a copy of the said court order to the HOS.

Nwachokor had earlier said that “the tutors of public secondary schools in Delta State decry in clear terms deductions of money amounting to N1,900 from each tutor’s emolument for the month of January 2011. This to the tutor is a slap on their integrity, the law and freedom of association.

“We therefore that all deduction from the personal emoluments of tutors in the state secondary schools be stopped forthwith as directed by the Agbor High Court order of 2ndDecemebr 2002 which has not been vacated till date.

The Government should bear in mind that failure to act in this regard will mean that the Government is in league with these forces of oppression and retrogression”, pointing out that “tutors are not ready to continually keep silent when the labour law states that no deduction shall be made from a worker’s personal emolument without his or her consent and that no worker should be coerced to join any union not of his choice”.