SBI strike enters day 4, court hearing on April 19

Talks between striking employees of State Bank of India (SBI) and Chief Labour Commissioner S K Mukhopadhyay for a hike in pension failed today.

A hearing at the high court also remained inconclusive with both parties sticking to their stands. The matter will come up for hearing again on April 19.

"We will carry out dharnas from tomorrow. The All India Employees Association of LIC will join us in support. The Centre of Indian Trade Unions has also expressed its support," G D Nadaf, secretary, Association of State Bank of India Officers' Federation said.

SBI chairman A K Purwar today met officials of the banking division in the finance ministry and the labour commissioner to discuss steps to sort out the matter.

The size of the SBI's pension fund, which is over Rs 10,000 crore, has also come into question. According to a government official, SBI is contributing much more to the fund than the statutory limit and the real size of the fund should be less than half the figure.

"Against the statutory norm of 10 per cent, the bank is contributing about 26 per cent. Even other banks are contributing much more than the statutory limit as about 30 per cent of the basic is required as contribution to meet the pension liability," he said.

At the hearing in the high court, additional solicitor-general P P Malhotra submitted that the SBI employees were enjoying all three benefits "" gratuity, contributory provident fund and pension "" and similar demands would be raised by employees of other public sector banks if the government agreed to their demands.

The employee unions have been arguing that SBI employees have an unfair deal as the 10 per cent contributory PF they got did not compensate for the fact that in other PSU banks, pension was 50 per cent of the salary without any cap.

In case of gratuity, Nadaf said, "While other banks have service gratuity which can go up to Rs 7 lakh for a general manager, in case of SBI employees, it is capped at Rs 3.5 lakh under the Gratuity Act."

The court suggested to the unions to suspend the strike for a fortnight on the condition that it would appoint a committee to look into the matter and suggest solutions. However, the unions refused to accept the suggestion and submitted that they would suspend the strike only if the government announced ad-hoc relief on their demands.

Senior counsel Rajiv Shakdhar, appearing for the petitioner (an SBI account holder, Raghvindra Singh), submitted that cessation of work by employees of the bank was detrimental to the economy as well as well-being of society as a whole. The court said its interim order restraining SBI employees from staging protest or dharna within 500 m of a bank branch anywhere in the country would continue.