By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE: “We are inconvenienced at the First National Bank(FNB) when one employee is out for lunch, then you can imagine the inconvenience during the proposed strike action”.

These were the sentiments of Anthony Ntjalintjali,a First National Bank(FNB) Eswatini customer who was reacting to an article published by this Swaziland News on Wednesday morning regarding the highly anticipated strike action.

This comes after the bank assured its customers that, operations won’t be affected by the looming strike action this week, the workers are demanding an 8.5% salary increment while the bank is offering 5.85%.

“The bank is not telling the truth, we quee for many hours there and when we see one employee going out for lunch, we are inconvenienced for that hour, imagine a strike action? You cannot say there would be no inconvenience when your workers are on strike, what was the purpose of employing them if operations can continue normally, without them?. During the strike, the Managers might try to perform the duties of the junior employees and obviously, they would be an inconvenience, utawutsi uyafika ku-ATM utohola ukhandze kute imali.Emalayini ebhange abe madze ngiyo le-inconvenience phela leyo. Utawubukela phela”, said the FNB customer.

On another note, Futhie Magagula, the FNB Manager Employees Relations assured customers that, operations will continue smoothly during the strike action, however, more customers who contacted this publication felt the bank was playing a Public Relations(PR) stunt with these sentiments as the strike action will affect operations of the reputation financial institution.

On another note, Jabu Shiba,the Swaziland Union of Financial Institutions and Allied Workers Union(SUFIAWU) Secretary General(SG) 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’s 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.

Shiba wrote a letter to Dennis Tikhalo Mbingo, the FNB Chief Executive Officer(CEO) this week, expressing concerns amid allegations suggesting that, the FNB Management was intimidating workers ahead of the highly anticipated strike action.