By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE: Jabu Shiba, the Secretary General(SG) of the Swaziland Union of Financial Institutions and Allied Workers Union(SUFIAWU) has written a letter to Dennis Tikhalo Mbingo,the First National Bank(FNB) Chief Executive Officer(CEO) expressing concerns regarding the alleged intimidation of employees ahead of the highly anticipated strike action on Friday.

FNB workers are demanding an 8.5% salary increament while the bank is offering 5.85% that was rejected by the workers.

“We are inundated with complaints from our members, who advise us that their managers approached them individually and ask them to indicate if they will participate in the upcoming strike action. This is totally unacceptable and to be done by an institution of FNB’s stature, it is not only shocking but absurd”, reads the letter in part.

Reached for comments earlier, the FNB CEO told this Swaziland News that, Futhie Magagula, the Employees Relations Manager was the rightful person to comment regarding all matters surrounding this issue.

Speaking to this publication,Futhie Magagula,the FNB Manager Employees relations earlier told this Swaziland News that,operations won’t be affected by the strike action, she had not responded when asked to clarify the new allegations regarding the harassment of employees.

But the Bank Manager first sent an email to all employees expressing the financial institution’s commitment to resolve the matter.

“The Bank is committed to finding resolution without the need for the substantial cost to both affected employees and the Bank that disruption and avoidable conflict create.The pending matters will be resolved and will be resolved within reasonable and sustainable means, and it is the intention of the Bank that post the resolution of these matters, employee-employer engagement be sustained to mitigate misinformation and misunderstanding risk”, reads the email in part.

Reached for comments by this publication,Futhie Magagula, the FNB Manager Employees Relations said, the email was directed to Bank employees hence,she can’t comment.

“Good Day Nkhosi.We respect communications between the Bank and its employees and we would like to protect the integrity of internal conversations,” said the FNB Manager Employees Relations.

It has been disclosed that, apart from the low salaries and unlike their colleagues in the banking industry who enjoy certain benefits from their employers, FNB workers are charged service fees like all customers and this, include bank charges and initiation fees.

FNB Eswatini is also failing to provide workers with working equipment that include gadgets particularly smartphones,to enable them to login to the banking system, employees are forced to purchase their own gadgets as a working tool.

On another note, Jabu Shiba,the SUFIAWU Secretary General told this publication on Tuesday evening that,FNB Eswatini was refusing to grant the employees the 8.5% on the basis that,the Union settled for less when negotiating with other banks on behalf of it’a members.

“You ask yourself what type of a bank is this?.They are refusing to grant us the 8.5% because they claim we are demanding too much as we settled for less when negotiating with other banks on behalf of our members and we are saying NO, those banks are different from FNB, they are taking care of their employees with certain benefits”, said the SUFIAWU Secretary General.