Saudi-owned Islamic bank employees strike in Sudan

AFP, 29 April 2000, 12:55 PM

Strikers are demanding a pay rise of up to 100 pct as well as the removal of three deputy bank managers and additional allowances, source reports.

KHARTOUM (AFP English)—Employees of a majority Saudi-owned Islamic bank in Sudan are staging a three-day strike after negotiations with management failed to secure them pay rises, a trade union official said Saturday.

Vice-President of Faisal Islamic Bank’s own trade union, Anwar Hamid Al-Sanousi, threatened that the protest might turn into an open strike if the management of did not respond to their demands.

The strikers are demanding a pay rise of up to 100 percent as well as the removal of three deputy bank managers and additional allowances, Sanousi told reporters. The number of the bank`s employees was not available.

Faisal, the first bank to deal in accordance with Islamic law and most of whose shares are held by Saudi Prince Mohammed Al-Faisal, was founded in 1978 with headquarters in Khartoum and about 70 branches in Sudan.

The bank called on employees, in a statement issued late Friday, not to implement the strike decision arguing that it was illegal because the stages of negotiation and arbitration were not finished.

The official Al-Anbaa daily meanwhile reported that the bank began recruiting new staff Friday to confront the strike. The paper quoted Deputy General Manager Babikir Mohi Eddin Al-Jaili as saying the recruitment was a precautionary measure to run the minimum number of branches. President of the Sudan Trade Unions Federation, Taj Al-Sir Abdoun, was quoted by the paper as saying tremendous efforts had been made to resolve the dispute and an agreement was about to be concluded, but the trade union insisted on the strike. Abdoun urged the management to halt new recruitments, saying this would be tantamount to mass dismissal of the strikers.