NMB workers call off strike

NATIONAL Micro-finance Bank (NMB) Tanzania Union of Industrial Workers (TUICO) leaders yesterday acceded to a court order demanding that they call off their strike and resume work by 8:00 this morning.

The TUICO Secretary General, Mr Boniface Nkakitisi, asked hundreds of NMB workers at Msimbazi Centre in Dar es Salaam to resume work after the court issued the order amid shouts and booing in defiance.

Mr Nkakatisi said that the court had directed TUICO and NMB to go back to the negotiating table so that the signing of the issues that had already been discussed take place.

Back in the streets, relief for stranded clients at empty automated teller machines (ATMs) was on the horizon as the Bank’s managers assured them the machines would be operational throughout the country today.

In the meantime, the NMB management has pledged readiness to pay up all ‘lump sum’ claims -- which were at the centre of controversy – terming such arrangement as ‘understandable’ if the government requests so.

The Chairman of High Court’s Labour Division, Judge Ernest Mwipopo, instructed NMB employees to resume duty within three hours from the time he issued the order at 2.25pm yesterday.

However, the workers could not resume duty within the specified period because it was difficult for each of them to reach their place of work as the closing hour for bank services was at 4.00pm.

Mr Nkakatisi said that the court had also directed that no worker would be penalised for taking part in the two-day strike. It further ruled that the strike was illegal because it didn’t satisfy the stipulated 48-hour notice before it could be staged, but still left room to staging another if the workers deemed fit and followed the procedures.

“I urge all the workers to go back to work tomorrow (Wednesday) morning like the court has ruled. Since we can’t counter the court outside the court, go back and leave us with the mandate to counter it from within,” he said.

He said that the court had given TUICO leaders until today to file submissions to the NMB management, and for the Bank to file its response to these submissions by Thursday in time for the hearing that has been scheduled for this Friday.

The TUICO Deputy Secretary General, Mr Alquine Senga, said that despite the call back to duty, the workers were happy that it had borne fruit in that the court had issued a directive regarding the negotiations -- though the signing hadn’t taken place as anticipated.

source; Daily News