Iba Wage Parleys From Monday

The Indian Banks Association (IBA) will begin a two-day discussion with bank officers unions on Monday for the new wage settlement. The earlier settlement had expired at the end of October 1997.

We have invited four unions of officers from the banking industry to set the ball rolling on the wage issue, said a senior representative of the association.

The IBA team will be headed by Harbhajan Singh, chairman and managing director of Allahabad Bank. He will be aided on the committee by a number of top level officials of various nationalised and other banks.

The banking system has approximately 2.5 lakh officers whose fate will be decided at these talks. These officers are represented by the All India Bank Officers Confederation (Aiboc), All India Bank Officers Association (Aiboa), Indian National Bank Officers Congress (Inboc) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (Nobo).

The talks for wage revision of workmen will be taken up later, IBA sources said. The sixth bipartite settlement governing the wage structure of workmen had also expired last year. It is not that we will be able to arrive to any conclusion in this two-day meet. This is only an exploratory meeting, said sources.

The negotiations assume significance as it follows the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission. Since government employees have been granted hefty increases in wages by the Pay Commission, bank employees and officers are unlikely to settle for anything less.

Another reason for the talks assuming significance is the demand by some banks to have the freedom to conduct their own negotiations. This follows the liberalisation of the financial sector following the Narasimham Committee recommendations in 1991.

It is likely that the broad areas will be decided upon by the IBA in their talks with the unions while the details will be left to individual banks to decide on their own.

The service conditions of workmen are usually governed by the bipartite settlements signed between the IBA as representative of bank managements and the unions of bank employees. On the other hand, the service conditions, including wages, of bank officers are governed by Officers Service Regulations.