RBI employees withdraw two-day strike

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) employee unions on Monday deferred their two-day mass casual leave planned for September 4-5 after the bank management sought "some time" to consider their demands.

"As responsible and reasonable trade unions, we decided to respond to the Governor's and the Deputy Governor's appeal for giving them 'some time' to resolve the issues," the United Forum of Reserve Bank Officers and Employees said in a statement.

"We decided for a short deferment of our mass casual leave programme up to first week of January 2019, beyond which, if issues linger further, we will go for a flash strike, which we have unequivocally communicated to Deputy Governor Viral Acharya," the statement added.

The forum had called the two-day mass casual leave to press for demands related to pension updation for about 21,000 retirees of RBI and another chance to switch from Contributory Provident Fund (CPF) to pension for 2,600-odd CPF holders.

The logjam ended after senior officials of the central bank led by Acharya held a series of meetings with the union leaders over the last three working days and informed the unions about a letter from the Finance Ministry.

The Ministry, in its August 31 letter, has asked the bank to urgently give in writing its concrete proposals for changes in RBI Pension Regulations. Acharya told the unions that RBI will be communicating to the Ministry very soon, the statement added.

"To our query he (Acharya) assured that the issue of one more option will be taken care of suitably. Deputy Governor says our demand for CPF for post-2012 recruits is an internal issue of the bank, which will be considered.

"Government's letter is definitely a departure from the past when, vide their letter of February 24, 2018 in response to our Governor's letter of October 9, 2017, they negated both the demands of pension updation and option on grounds of 'expenses' and 'contagion' effect," the forum's statement said.

--IANS

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