Human rights group calls on Republic Bank to review dismissals

Thursday, March 29th 2007
Stabroek News
http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article?id=56517143

The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) condemns the manner in which Republic Bank recently dismissed six employees and has since requested that its management review its decision. The request comes after the bank's Chief Executive Officer Michael Archibald reportedly said "he had nothing to add to what he already said" in response to a GHRA request to discuss the issue, the association said in a statement yesterday. Six employees (five women and one man) were said to be implicated in the disappearance of $8 million from the bank's Kitty/Guyoil ATM and were subsequently dismissed with an offer of severance pay. No reason was given for their dismissal. The GHRA said it is concerned by two dimensions of this issue: the violation of workers' rights and civil liberties and whether such behaviour can be expected routinely from the Caricom Single Market and Economy. The GHRA made a call for local and regional authorities to pay attention to the questions raised by this incident even as it condemned the bank's actions. The dismissed employees, the association said, all poised for success in the banking industry, have worked with the bank between four and ten years. "All have been steadily promoted within the bank. Young stable professionals form the critical core for the development of this country. It is difficult to envisage a scenario more likely to encourage them to look elsewhere," it said. The GHRA said it is concerned too that the employees were denied due process. During the course of the bank's investigations, three of the accused women were taken in open back vehicles, accompanied by armed police officers, to each of their homes, which were then searched without warrants. The two other women and the man were taken in an unmarked police car, by two plainclothes police officers, to their homes, which were also searched without any warrants being shown to their families. The GHRA executive committee also questioned the bank's authority in relation to bringing in "outside security" who interrogated the employees, with contempt, and asked them questions including "whether they were having affairs with each other". "That a bank which seeks to distinguish itself as 'caring' towards its customers should operate in such a callous manner towards its own employees would seem bizarre, were it not for the fact that reducing job security is a prominent part of the globalised corporate culture," the human rights body said. And it questioned: "Is this the future all workers can expect in the CSME?" The GHRA said Republic Bank is not the worst offender in the local private sector and indeed compared with the Asian companies operating in forestry it could be considered enlightened. "But the need to make such comparison is itself a chilling prospect. The long-standing dream of an expanding middle-class is becoming a nightmare in Guyana of the very rich on one hand and everyone else on the other," the statement said. Meanwhile, the association said, government's silence on the dismissals contrasts sharply with its efforts to facilitate banks and businesses by creating a commercial court to repossess goods from hire-purchasing workers and loan defaulters. "Enable business: disable labour is a more appropriate motto for the CSME than any reference to the Caricom Social Charter," the GHRA contended. It said there is a rising incidence of fraud occurring in business places in Guyana, particularly in banks and insurance companies with their huge cash flows. "We encourage legal, impartial and consistent methods of combating this problem. Our basic concern is that governments in the region and our own in particular must demonstrate some effective concern over incidents such as these dismissals and take more seriously their legal obligations to protect workers' rights against companies which treat Guyana primarily as a source of plunder and profit and Guyanese as a disposable commodity," the GHRA said.