Karnataka - Bangalore   

Bank strike called off

Bangalore: At about 5 a.m. on Monday, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), representing nine major unions in the banking industry, "deferred" its two-day nation-wide strike of bank employees. Later in the evening, it formally called off the strike after signing an agreement with the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), which represents the interests of the bank managements. Union sources said that the IBA’s assurance that it would commence negotiations with the unions on their six major demands on March 3 paved the way for calling off the strike.

In a separate but related development, officers and workers belonging to the State Bank of India (SBI) signed an another agreement with the SBI management in Mumbai. The convener of the UFBU, C.H. Venkatachalam, said from Mumbai that the IBA had promised to "set out a time-table for the negotiations" at the meeting scheduled for March 3. He said the IBA appeared to "show greater flexibility" in dealing with the unions’ demand on pensions. The minutes of the discussions between the two sides revealed that the IBA had agreed to “reconcile the actuarial calculations relating to pension with a view to consider extending one more option of pension to the remaining employees”. Regarding the demand relating to outsourcing, Mr. Venkatachalam said the IBA was willing to discuss the issue with the unions, “keeping in view the existing parameters and regulatory guidelines”. On the issue of recruitment, the IBA stated that this was a “bank-specific” matter. On the subject of wage revision, Mr. Venkatachalam said while some banks had already authorised the IBA to negotiate a revision on their behalf, some had yet to do so. He said the IBA has said that it will direct the remaining bank managements to also formally authorise the IBA to initiate wage revision. On the issue of merging of the public sector bank, Mr. Venkatachalam said the IBA had said this issue was outside the purview of the bank managements. "They claimed that the Government had not issued policy guidelines on the issue," he said. However, the UFBU representatives disagreed with the IBA and asked the IBA “not to proceed with mergers unilaterally”.

V. Easwaran, president, All India Bank Officers’ Confederation, said the agreement was "significant because it is the first time we have an assurance from the bank managements that they would give another chance for bank employees to opt for a pension scheme," he said. H. Vasanth Rai, president of the Karnataka Pradesh Bank Employees’ Association refused to term the calling off of the strike as a defeat. "

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