Nationwide bank strike on January 27 hits operations across India

The nationwide bank strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) on January 27, 2026, witnessed near-total participation, with around 8 lakh bank employees and officers staying away from work across the country, according to a press statement by the bank unions.

 

The UFBU — an umbrella body of nine unions representing bank employees and officers — said the strike was observed in public sector banks, private sector banks, foreign banks, regional rural banks, and cooperative banks. The forum termed the strike a “total success”, claiming normal banking operations were severely affected nationwide.

 

The strike was called to press for the long-pending demand for a five-day work week in the banking industry, including declaring all Saturdays as bank holidays. At present, only the second and fourth Saturdays of every month are bank holidays.

 

 

“The strike was forced on us as the government has failed to grant approval for implementation of the five-day banking week despite repeated assurances and formal agreements,” UFBU said in a statement.

 

The unions pointed out that the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) had recommended the five-day work week based on a memorandum of understanding signed with UFBU on December 7, 2023, and the subsequent settlement and joint note dated March 8, 2024. Under the agreement, daily working hours from Monday to Friday were to be increased by 40 minutes to compensate for Saturdays being declared holidays.

 

According to UFBU, the demand for a five-day work week has been pending since 2015, when the IBA and the government agreed to declare the second and fourth Saturdays as holidays, with an assurance that the remaining Saturdays would be reviewed later. However, the matter has remained unresolved despite further discussions in 2022 and a formal recommendation made in 2023.

 

The forum also noted that similar work-week patterns are already in place in institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, and General Insurance Corporation, besides central and state government offices. Stock exchanges and money markets also function only from Monday to Friday.

 

Conciliation meetings were held by the Chief Labour Commissioner on January 22 and 23, 2026, in New Delhi, with officials from the finance ministry participating. However, UFBU said the meetings did not yield any positive outcome, prompting the unions to go ahead with the strike.

 

“Bank employees and officers are deeply aggrieved that they alone are being discriminated against,” the statement said, adding that alternative banking channels now available would minimise inconvenience to customers.

 

The unions appealed to the public to bear with the inconvenience caused and reiterated their demand for immediate government approval to implement five-day banking.