Bank Unions to observe 24-hour strike over wage revision, pensions

The All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) in collaboration with the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) will observe a 24-hour long strike demanding wage revision and opposing the proposed merger of Dena Bank, Vijaya Bank and Bank of Baroda.

Scores of members belonging to various state-owned lenders were seen staging protests over the merger of public sector banks and bipartite wage settlement. Furthermore, protesting bankers also put forth a demand for rollback of the National Pension Scheme (NPS) which was proposed by the Centre recently.

The AIBOC and UFBU will conclude their strike on December 21 midnight.

"AIBOC strongly opposes the Government proposal to merge Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank as this measure will not help the merged entity to tackle any of its problems including the NPA menace. The classic example of the merger of State Bank of India (SBI) with its associate Banks which was a financial disaster as the merged entity continuously posted humungous losses for three consecutive quarters. It also had to endure several other problems that arose on account of merger. The rationalisation of branches on account of merger is sure to derail the banking services to millions of ordinary customers in the country," AIBOC said in a statement.

The bankers' union also condemned the stand taken by the Indian banks association (IBA), ignoring the fact that majority of the banks have given unconditional mandate to them for wage negotiation. "IBA is also not coming forward to structure the bipartite negotiations based on our charter of demands by agreeing to discuss the wage revision of officers from scale I to scale VII and also based on the concept of minimum wages as envisaged in the 7th CPC," it added.

Protesters also opposed the planned move to merge Regional Rural Banks citing that it will unnecessarily trigger branch closures, loss of livelihood to many people, denial of smooth banking services to many farmers, artisans in rural India.

"This move is against the very purpose of creating Regional Rural Banks and will be against the interest of the common man in the country. This move will surely affect the flow of credit to the rural sector, which will affect the agriculturists, farmers, MSMEs, SHGs, Women, students, and the common man," the dossier issued by the AIBOC read.

The AIBOC strike of today is also against the serious Human Resource crisis blowing in Catholic Syrian Bank as well as IDBI Bank.