The Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (BIG­WU) is de­mand­ing the im­me­di­ate re­in­state­ment of all Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) work­ers it says were un­just­ly dis­missed.

In a state­ment to­day, the union con­demned what it called “dra­con­ian and ar­bi­trary” ter­mi­na­tions, say­ing it has so far record­ed 69 dis­missals across 12 re­gion­al of­fices. Many of those af­fect­ed, it said, have worked in the pro­gramme for 10, 15, and 20 years in po­si­tions in­clud­ing en­gi­neers, re­gion­al su­per­vi­sors, cler­i­cal of­fi­cers, sec­re­taries, and ac­counts clerks.

BIG­WU said the dis­missals were car­ried out with­out cause, charge, or hear­ing, in vi­o­la­tion of good in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions prac­tice and in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards. It ques­tioned why the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Act was not ap­plied and why due process was ig­nored.

The union al­so crit­i­cised state­ments from the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment that the dis­missals were linked to re­struc­tur­ing and ghost gangs. BIG­WU said work­ers are not “ghosts” but trained pro­fes­sion­als who pro­vide crit­i­cal ser­vices to the un­em­ployed.

The union ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion, call­ing the dis­missals a “de­lib­er­ate, dra­con­ian, and mer­ci­less” abuse of pow­er.

BIG­WU is al­so call­ing for an end to what it de­scribed as the dan­ger­ous abuse of pow­er that threat­ens the rights of work­ers across the coun­try.