Bankers to stage dharna at Jantar Mantar on Sept 20
In a bid to protest against the recently announced PSB, The United Forum of Bank Unions (UBFU) has decided to launch a sustained programme of agitation against the proposed move of merger of public sector banks. “In order to show strong disapproval of the move, we would stage a mass dharna before Parliament at 10.30 am on September 20 (Friday),” said Sanjeev K Bandlish, Convenor, UFBU. Several bankers from across the country to stage dharna .
All nine bank officers and employee unions will participate in the day-long dharna. A delegation of the UFBU would later meet Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to hand over a memorandum seeking a review of the merger proposal. The United Forum will reconvene the same evening to take stock of the developments and chalk out further programmes, Bandlish added.
Bank officers and clerical employees from all over the country will gather in the national capital to protest against the recently announced merger citing large-scale layoffs. The UFBU feels that the proposed merger is totally unwarranted and no positive benefit would accrue to the parties involved. If anything, it would only bring harm to the banking sector as a whole, it added. The UFBU had called for nation-wide mass protests on August 31 with members wearing black badges in office.
Meanwhile, in connection with its meetings on Indian Banks' Association (IBA) on wage revision and related issues, the UFBU has clarified its stance on the proposed performance-linked incentive scheme. Earlier, the IBA had refused to raise the wage increase offer from 10 per cent but agreed to review the performance-linked pay scheme for about 8.5 lakh public sector bank employees.
The bankers body had, in a meeting with bank unions held last month, proposed to form a sub-committee to deliberate on the contentious issue. The UFBU is of the view that the introduction of the performance-linked incentive scheme should be exclusively over and above the mutually agreed quantum in wage revision. The UBFU would also review the scheme as proposed by the IBA but the larger discussions on the issue can be part of the regular bipartite discussions.
Mergers are bound to lead to large-scale layoffs, promotions of officers of merged entities will be hit and also employees of such banks will be treated as second-grade staff as they will be kept out of prime postings," he added. “In view of the above, we would request you to take our view points and accordingly discuss the issue further in the ensuing meetings of the IBA,” Bandlish said.
The entire wage revisions needs to be expedited as employees and officers are anxiously looking forward to settlement of the same. The 11th bipartite settlement is due from November 1, 2017. The issue of the 'mandate' should be settled amicably, and the IBA should also substantially improve its offer so that the wage revision settlement can be concluded at the earliest.
It may be recalled that the IBA had earlier proposed a 'split mandate' for officers up to scale V suggesting bank-wise increment for officers in Scale VI and VII.
Since the two-day strike is followed by weekend holidays, the effective days for which there will be little banking activity will extend to four days. This is likely to hit cheque clearances, cash deposits/withdrawals and any other services availed at bank branches and ATMs.
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