The unions have called for a strike against proposed closure of associate banks and their merger with the State Bank of India
Bank employees have decided to go strike, as earlier planned on July 12 and 13, since the conciliation meeting failed to yield any results. The unions have called for a strike against proposed closure of associate banks and their merger with the State Bank of India (SBI), and proposed privatisation of IDBI Bank, among other issues.
C H Venkatachalam, general secretary of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) said the chief labour commissioner convened a conciliation meeting at his office in New Delhi on Friday. The meeting was attended by representatives from all bank unions.
Officials of the department of financial services, finance ministry, Indian Banks’ Association and executives from the five associate banks were also present.
AIBEA explained the issues mentioned in its strike notice in detail are unwarranted and emphasised that effective measures needed to recover the increasing bad loans should be given priority instead.
“We stated that instead of taking stringent measures against wilful and deliberate defaulters, the government is diverting the attention by steps such as privatisation and consolidation as a means to improve efficiency and profitability of banks,” said Venkatachalam.
He added that the unions had also pointed out that even on issues like violation of settlement, negation of collective bargaining, imposition of unilateral and adverse service conditions on employees of associate banks, the response of the management was “disappointing and discouraging”.
In response to the chief labour commissioner’s appeal to defer the strike, the unions informed they were ready to consider deferment of the strike if the proposed merger of was put on hold.
“However, there was no positive response from their side,” said Venkatachalam.
Since the conciliation meeting did not yield any result, the unions have decided to go on strike as planned.
