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Bank strike on Tuesday, as talks fail over wage hike

About a million bank employees will go on a one-day nationwide strike on Tuesday demanding higher wages and better service conditions after the Indian Banks Association stuck to its earlier wage offer of eight per cent increase for the entire industry.

In the last meeting held with the IBA on January 8, the bank unions were allegedly threatened of retrenchment, voluntary retirement service, wage-freeze and postponement of wage negotiation by another four months.

But the IBA sources said that the unions office-bearers were explained the reason behind offering eight per cent wage hike particularly in light of the grim economic scenario and downtrend in banking sector.

The IBA also justified that there was no need for higher wage hike than the eight per cent because of the wage increases signed in 1995 and 1997. In fact, the present offer itself will translate into 12 per cent increase within six months on account of time-to-time increase in daily allowances which would again have an adverse impact on the working results of the banking industry.

The profit of the banking industry for March 1999 is expected to be around Rs 30 billion. The first charge on this profit would be about Rs 10 billion for provisioning, another Rs 10 billion would be ploughed back for technology upgradation and the remaining amount would be available to meet the proposed eight per cent wage hike for the employees.

Anything more than Rs 10 billion would not be affordable by the banking system to meet the higher wages.

Tuesday's strike would largely affect the work in public sector commercial banks and foreign banks as the call was given by the joint action committee comprising 12 unions of both officers and employees. The Reserve Bank of India Officers' Association also decided to support the all-India strike tomorrow.

The All India Bank Officers' Confederation leader T N Goel said that the operations in the clearing houses would also be hit thus totally paralysing the banking activity.

General secretary of the SBI Staff Association V K Gupta said on behalf of the National Confederation of Bank Employees that the employees and officers were going on strike under the banner of the United Forum of Bank Unions comprising nine unions.

The unions demand an increase of 20 per cent excluding the superannuation benefits.

Goel held the IBA responsible for forcing employees to go on strike since the bank managements were ''sticking to illogical and irrational stand of giving only eigth per cent hike''. He said the bank employees were seeking parity with the central government staff which meant they should have got a raise of 56 per cent.

However, considering the overall health of the banking industry, the unions had diluted their demand from 56 per cent to 40 per cent and again to 30 per cent before agreeing to 20 per cent.

UNI

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