GNCB employees want word on severance terms
Stabroek News
January 29, 2003
Employees of the soon-to-be privatised Guyana National Cooperative Bank (GNCB) are becoming anxious due to the absence of definitive word from the Privatisation Unit (PU) on their fate.
This anxiety is being fuelled by the lack of discussions between their representatives and the unit on proposals for severance and other benefits which were submitted last year.
Negotiations began in December between the employees' representatives and the PU on an acceptable severance package in light of the bank's imminent takeover by the National Bank of Industry and Commerce (NBIC).
Contacted yesterday PU Head, Winston Brassington declined comment saying it would be improper for him to discuss issues with which they were engaging the bank's staff association.
Sources have told Stabroek News that with the bank's formal closing scheduled for between February 15 to March 15, there had been no meeting between the parties since December 18.
According to the source, there are a number of issues which the employees are not prepared to leave to chance but are keen to have formalised and ratified in a document.
With the closing period nearing, they see it as critical that matters to do with their displacement are not cramped into a short time frame.
It is still unclear how many of GNCB's employees will be taken over by NBIC.
