Nationwide Bank Strike has been called on by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), which represents more than 7.5 lakh workers and officers in the banking industry on August 6th and 7th 2009.
The unions have rejected the Indian Banks’ Association’s (IBA) wage revision offer made late in the night on August 4. IBA offered a wage increase of 17.5 percent, which was higher than its earlier offer of 13 per cent. However,the bank managements’ insistence that employees also accept a pension scheme whose terms would be reviewed every year was not acceptable to the UFBU, he said. “The IBA’s insistence that we accept its package deal is unacceptable because it is conditional on us accepting the pension package, which is against the interest of the employees,” hesaid.
One of the contentious issues is the UFBU’s demand that 2.5 lakh employees in the industry (and 50,000 retired employees) be given another option to opt for a pension scheme instead of the provident fund scheme. According to the UFBU, the scheme is expected to cost Rs.17,000 crores, of which Rs. 11,000 crores would be available from existing PF reserves. The UFBU said employees are willing to contribute Rs. 1,800crores for the scheme. Mr. Venkatachalam said the IBA, had, in June, agreed to meet the remaining cost amounting to Rs. 4,200 crores.
Apart from the 7.5 lakh employees of public sector banks, staff and employees of private and foreign banks are also likely to participate the strike, Mr. Venkatachalam said.
Five unions representing staff and workers and four unions representing officers are constituents of the UFBU. Banking services in 60,000 branches across the country are likely to be affected by the strike.
Nationwide Bank Strike in India on August 6th & 7th 2009 will bring lot of financial services to the halt.
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8 comments ↓
UFBU SHOULD GO FOR INDEFINITE STRIKE IF THIS 2 DAY STRIKE DOESNOT HELP THEM IN ORDER TO MAKE IT CLEAR THE GOVT. THAT OUR DEMANDS ARE JUSTIFIED.WHEN BANK CAN EARN HUGE PROFIT TO GOVT. THEY SHOULD BE GIVEN A RISE OF 30% ATLEAST.
The demands are not rational. The bank employees get more benefits already than they deserve.
UFBU..sud make a higher demand of atleast 35% i dont no y de r jst hanging arnd 20% we are wrkin mre then 10 timesa norml govt employe even at late nights providin huge profit to d Govt.& on exchng wt v r gettin..NOTHING…centrl govt employee hv gt doubled dir salary in lst revisn nd wt abt us dis can nt b justified
AFTER THIS STRIKE UFBU SHOULD NOT SETTLE THE MATTER BELOW 30% HIKE AT ANY COST PLUS THE OTHER TWO DEMANDS INCLUDING PENSION AND COMPASSIONATE APPOINTMENTS AND IF NEED ARISE SHOULD TAKE STRICT ACTION FURTHER.
Bank officers are over burdoned. Risk is more and lot of pressure by government, public, executives. In the hierarchy the top executive is always praised by the lower level executives leaving the junior and middlelevel officers. Higher level corruption is very much encouraged by the political system. This has demoralsed the Banking sector. Government should pat them rather than demoralising the officers and other working personnel
Bank officers and employees are doing a greater service now rather than the past one. A Manager is answerable for NPA, deposits, advances, profitablility, segment wise advance, insurance both life and general, regular inspection,RBI inspsetion , KYC norms, concurrent audit etc..etc., and the except the DA hike the wage increase is very minimal. thus the wage revision will help the moral boosting of the Bank employees
APPEARANCE AND REALITY GOVERNMENT MUST OPEN ITS EYES AND SETTLE THE BANKMEN PAY REVISION
The strike call by the bank employees and officers is the full creation of the IBA /Government combine. After successive failure of talks after withdrawal of the strike actions during the past they left with no other alternative but for getting the strike plan materialized. After bringing down the salary of the officers during 1979 on par with the govt officers citing equal work equal pay principle, the same govt increased the salary of their employees multifold by successive pay commissions, Good attempt. They are denying the same to bank employees. The public sector salaries also were raised. For every area they are matching the salary as per VI the pay commission. Bank employees were categorized neither as govt employees nor as public sector employees. If govt employee means, they should get scales as per VI th pay commission. If public sector mean they should draw more than that. Since the unions /associations lost a good chance of bargaining before elections by hearing the false assurances of the govt/iba without strike action, they are at the disadvantage position. When commissions are appointed and their hefty recommendations are simply accepted by the cabinet knowing fully well that it will cause a huge deficit what is the reason for standing in the way of bank men salaries that are payable out of the profit generated. This factor was highlighted in the Rajya sabha also during the calling attention motion. Even after the revision they are not going to be even near to the VI th pay commission levels. God alone will save them, as the government is not looking the demands on a scientific manner. Financial sector employees are the best paid in every nation for obvious reason, When attracting talent, retaining the talent is applicable for Government, public sector undertakings/IIMS/IITS will it not be applicable for financial sector. Recruits of 1970s and 1980s started retiring and the huge vacancies are to be filled up by people with good talent for which attractive compensation packages are a must. Government should take a practical approach and settle the issue with much liberal package then what the unions are asking for without using calculator, in the interest of the nation. The same is applicable for wage negotiations to be followed by LIC RBI ETC.
K Balasubramanian Chennai
demands are rational compare the salary inrease of other GOVT organisation/centeral govt organisations ,increase in MP/MLA PM/Presidents salary most of them are not profit making
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