Employers are usually faced with the challenge of how to balance the low productivity in business and their contractual obligations to workers amidst economic depression. Taking decisions in such circumstances may not be easy.
No matter what the management or HR decides, an employee should never be asked, advised or forced to resign. It is an unfair labour practice under an #ILO Convention to advise, coerce a worker to resign.
The case of Clarke v. Keystone Bank Ltd. & Anor. [2015] 56 N.L.L.R. (Pt. 192) 439 is very apt judicial decision on the point.
The issue of voluntariness or involuntariness of an employee’s resignation will undoubtedly be contentious whenever a claimant grounds his claim on such unfair labour practice. The court usually turns to pieces of evidence showing force or influence or coercion such memos, emails, the wording of the resignation letter.
Other circumstantial evidence like inadequate notice period, preventing the employee from accessing the workplace or tools before resignation or end of notice period or the act of typing out a resignation for a worker to sign.
It is immaterial that the employer is in a difficult situation. In Central Bank of Nigeria v. Aribo (2018) 4 NWLR (Pt. 1608) 130 at 172, where the respondent did not voluntarily resign but his employer (the bank) advised him to resign after the 1st appellant revoked the bank’s licence to conduct foreign exchange and fined it for illegal foreign exchange transaction, the Supreme Court held that the resignation was amounted to constructive dismissal although the apex court further held that the employee was justifiably dismissed.
In Mrs. Asana v. First Bank of Nigeria decided in 2018 by the Hon. Justice B. B. Kanyip, who, incidentally, is the current President of the National Industrial Court, the worker sued the bank for unfair labour practice on the ground that she was forced to resign.
Interestingly, the Claimant’s Resignation Letter was tendered in evidence and it reads thus in part:
“Further to the request that I should resign, by Management of First Bank of Nigeria Ltd. I hereby tender my letter of resignation”.
The Court rejected the bank’s denial of duress and held that the claimant was constructively dismissed having been forced to resign.
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