Unhappy With Wage Revision, Bank Employee Unions Call For A Two-day Strike

Employees of all the public sector banks will observe a two-day strike from May 30, to mark their protest against the central government’s casual approach to wage revision for bank employees/officers.

The nation-wide strike has been called by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella platform of nine bank unions, namely as All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), All India Bank Officers’ Association (AIBOA), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), Indian National Bank Employees Federation (INBEF), Indian National Bank Officers Congress (INBOC), National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO).

In a notice served to the Chairperson of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), the unions have expressed their dissent over various issues, including IBA’s delay in resolving Charter of Demands, IBA’s meagre offer of 2 percent hike in wage bill towards wage increase and the partial mandate given by some of the banks only up to Scale III Officers.

The charter of demands that have been put forward by the UFBU is an expeditious and early wage revision settlement, an adequate increase in salary and improvement in other service conditions and wage revision settlement to include all officers, up to Scale VII.

On May 5, in a wage negotiation meeting, IBA had proposed a 2 percent hike in the wage bill cost as on March 31, 2017. Throughout the meeting, IBA maintained that the negotiations on officers’ demands would be restricted up to scale III officers only.

“The initial offer of the Indian Banks Association was meagre which was totally rejected by the constituents of the United Forum of Bank Unions...Bank employees and officers are already paid very low compared with the Government employees as well as the private sector," IANS had quoted AIBOC General Secretary D T Franco as saying after wage revision talks between IBA and UFBU failed.

"It is only because of provisions towards NPA that banks have booked losses, and for this, bank employees are not responsible," said Devidas Tuljapurkar of UFBU.

For the last two-three years, the government policies, including the financial inclusion scheme Jan-Dhan, demonetisation, microfinance lending scheme Mudra and Atal Pension Yojana, have contributed huge workload to the employees. However, bank employees have been working tirelessly for the implementation, Tuljapurkar added.

Though the unions requested the Ministry of Finance to interfere in the wage revision matter, the Ministry has not responded to their requests yet.

"It is unfortunate that when the Government wants and expects bank employees and officers to extend all co-operation to implement all the Schemes of the Government through the Banks, when it comes to the legitimate demands for a reasonable and fair increase in wages, the Government is not paying serious attention," said UFBU in a letter to IBA on May 10.

The UFBU has also questioned the attitude of IBA over the demands of the employees. "Can IBA say that ordinary employees and officers of the Banks are responsible for these huge bad loans in the Banks? Can the employees and officers be victimised with lesser wage revision because of this huge NPA?" read the letter.

Wage revision for bank employees is due from November 1, 2017. The last wage settlement in this sector had occurred for the period of November 1, 2012, to October 31, 2017. During this period, IBA had given a wage hike of 15 percent.