The Hindu : Business : SBI staff strike on February 25, 26

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Tuesday, Feb 19, 2008
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SBI staff strike on February 25, 26

Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The All-India State Bank of India Staff Federation and the All-India State Bank Officers’ Federation have announced a strike on February 25 and 26. In the fourth week of March, they will go on an indefinite strike.

The federations organised a countrywide strike on January 25 over the demands in support of which strikes have been called now.

At a news conference here on Monday, their leaders said the strike formed part of a prolonged struggle that they had been waging in pursuance of their long-pending demand for improvements in superannuation benefit in the State Bank of India (SBI). The two federations went on strike from April 3 to 9, 2006 over the issue. The government then intervened and signed a memorandum of understanding with them for revision of the pension ceiling, but nothing concrete came out of it.

They said the government had assured the federations that other issues listed by them would be resolved through bilateral discussions and that the management had been advised to put up a comprehensive proposal to the government for its consideration.

Neither the government nor the management had kept its word, and a major portion of the issues connected with the superannuation scheme remained unresolved.

The leaders said there were other pressing issues, such as the proposal for merger of associate banks with the SBI; outsourcing of work; and failure of the management to recruit staff to take care of the expanding business and branch network expansion, which called for urgent attention.

The federations had taken the joint decision to go for a strike after failure of repeated attempts to get the management and the government to see reason.

John Joseph, general secretary, State Banks’ Staff Union (Kerala Circle); K. Rajeevan, general secretary, State Bank of India Officers’ Association (Kerala Circle); K. Raja Kurup, president, State Banks’ Staff Union (Kerala Circle); and P. Janardhanan, vice-president, State Bank of India Officers’ Association (Kerala Circle); spoke.

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