Retrenched Officers

7,600 UBL employees sacked--------------------------------------------------------------------Nafisa Hoodbhoy KARACHI, Oct 13: A total of 7,600 employees of the United Bank, including 4,500 from Sindh, were sent home on Monday, reducing the bank's nationwide strength by about one-third. The letters, dated Oct 10 and signed by the senior executive vice president, Khalid A. Sherwani, cited Rule 15 (1) of the UBL (Staff) Service Rules, 1981, and were served on all employees appointed or promoted to their present grade on or after Oct 1, 1991. Inquiries show that while UBL had 22,600 employees nationwide, the 7,600 employees who received the letters on Monday include 3,500 officers who were promoted out of turn from amongst the clerical staff to officer status (Grade 3) when Azizullah Memon headed the bank in 1993-94 and Aziz Memon was the CBA chief. The UBL management refused to answer a query from Dawn. However, the retrenchment letter issued by the management cited the large-scale removal of employees as a "painful decision" undertaken on account of overstaffing of the bank and in order to achieve its objective of "right sizing". With an estimated 3,000 Karachi-based UBL employees sacked, mostly from the main branch and head office, bewildered workers were seen on Monday afternoon milling around the UBL office on I.I. Chundrigar Road. A heavy presence of Rangers, police and Brinks security were posted to prevent any untoward incident. While Monday's action affected employees from 200 of UBL branches throughout Sindh, it was reported to have practically closed down the UBL's Personnel Department, Medical Department, Clearing, Sports, Printing and Stationery Departments throughout the city.