by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Economy, Large Enterprise, Markets, News
Chennai : The unions in the banking sector are squarely blaming the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) for forcing them to resort to a strike that entered the second and last day on Thursday.
“It is the IBA which has put the banking public to trouble and not the unions. The unions had given strike notice 20 days before the actual strike. The IBA did not respond to that,” C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) told IANS.
“The IBA has to be blamed for the strike. Even for the conciliation meeting called by the Chief Labour Commissioner (Delhi) the IBA had sent a junior official who had no authority,” All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) General Secretary D.T. Franco told IANS.
Both the union leaders said the resignation of Usha Ananthasubramanian as IBA’s Chairperson following the scam in Punjab National Bank (PNB) will not have any bearing on the wage negotiations.
“While the IBA has put the customers to difficulty it is the banks who will be saving cost or earning income due to the two day strike. The staff will not be paid wages for the period they were on strike; there will be saving on power costs as the offices were closed,” Venkatachalam said.
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions, called for a two-day strike that started on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Venkatachalam said the unions had requested the IBA to come up with better offer than the mere two per cent hike offer, so that the strike could be averted.
He said the IBA was also asked not to delink the wage negotiations for bank officers in the Scales 4-7. The IBA did not do anything.
At the conciliation meeting on Monday, the Chief Labour Commissioner (CLC) asked the IBA not to raise new controversies like delinking the wage talks for officers in the 4-7 scale, he said.
“Though the CLC tried its best to sort out the strike issues, there is no positive developments,” Franco had said earlier.
Wage revision in the banks was due from November 1, 2017.
According to Venkatachalam, the central government had been advising the IBA to conclude the wage issue before November, 2017.
Unions had submitted the Charter of Demands in May, 2017 and discussions commenced with them that month. But even though several rounds of discussions had taken place in the last one year, the IBA did not come forward to make any offer.
On May 5, the IBA made an offer to hike the wages by two per cent, quoting poor financial condition of the banks as a reason. This offer was not acceptable to the unions.
According to Franco and Venkatachalam, the IBA began the wage talks with five per cent hike during the last settlement.
“Over the years the wage cost for the banks are declining as experienced employees are retiring in large numbers and there is no commensurate new recruitment,” Venkatachalam said.
Venkatachalam said he is not against the mechanism of annual talks for wage revisions instead of the elaborate negotiations at the end of every five years, strikes and other time consuming matters.
“It is the government and the management who are not in favour of annual pay hikes. We are for working out some mechanism for such an action,” Venkatachalam said.
“There are some pros and cons. There is a proposal to do away with the wage settlements in the Wage Board Bill,” Franco said.
The nationwide strike by the bankers has evoked great response for the second day in succession with more than 80,000 bank branches remaining closed.
“More than 10 lakh bankers are on strike for the second day,” Venkatachalam said.
According to him, banking transactions worth about Rs 21,700 crore could not be put into effect across the country for the second day in succession.
A total of banking transactions worth about Rs 43,400 crore were affected during the two day strike.
“However, these transactions would be completed when the banks open their shutters on Friday. But for the bankers their two days wages were lost due to the inaction of IBA,” Venkatachalam said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, News
Chennai/Agatala/Bengaluru : Banking transactions worth about Rs 21,700 crore could not be put into effect across the country as more than 10 lakh bankers struck work on Wednesday to demand wage revision.
“The strike call evoked good response. About 85,000 bank branches, including that of State Bank of India (SBI) and some private banks, spread across the country were closed,” C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), told IANS.
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions, called for a two-day strike starting Wednesday.
The day saw bankers across the country holding demonstrations to push for an early conclusion of wage negotiations.
Queried about the value and volume of money instruments that would not be cleared by the bank’s clearing houses, Venkatachalam said: “On an all-India basis, clearance of 39 lakh instruments with a value of Rs 21,700 crore per day would be impacted. The above value and volume were the averages of last 15 days clearance of instruments.”
Venkatachalam said the unions had requested the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to come up with better offer than the mere two per cent hike offer, so that the strike could be averted.
He said the IBA was also asked not to delink the wage negotiations for bank officers in the Scales 4-7. The IBA did not do anything.
At the conciliation meeting on Monday, the Chief Labour Commissioner (CLC) asked the IBA not to raise new controversies like delinking the wage talks for officers in the 4-7 scale, he said.
“Though the CLC tried its best to sort out the strike issues, there is no positive developments. Hence the strike on May 30 and 31 stands,” All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) General Secretary D.T. Franco had said earlier.
According to Venkatachalam, with regard to the coverage of officers from Scale 4-7, the IBA said it did not get the mandate from six banks as they opted to cover officers up to Scale 3 level.
However, 14 banks have given the mandate for covering the officers up to Scale 7 in wage negotiations as was done in the previous wage settlement negotiations, he said.
Franco told IANS: “Six banks — SBI, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Indian Bank — are not in favour of including Scale 4-7 officers under the wage negotiations.”
Wage revision in the banks is due from November 1, 2017.
According to Venkatachalam, the Central government had been advising the IBA to conclude the wage issue before November, 2017.
Unions had submitted the Charter of Demands in May, 2017 and discussions commenced with them that month. But even though several rounds of discussions had taken place in the last one year, the IBA did not come forward to make any offer.
On May 5, 2018, the IBA made an offer to hike the wages by two per cent, quoting poor financial condition of the banks as a reason. This offer was not acceptable to the unions.
On Wednesday, leaders of the striking employees said the response of the strike was good across the country including in the eight northeastern states.
“About one lakh bank employees, including officers, stayed away from work across Karnataka,” All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) General Secretary Y. Sudarshan told IANS in Bengaluru.
Admitting that banking operations have been affected, Sudarshan said the onus was on the IBA and the government.
“In which way are we different from other government employees to be denied what is due for us… we also contribute to the development and growth of the economy,” he said.
Rejecting the IBA’s contention that banks were unable to bear the burden of huge losses as loans or advances turned into NPAs, he said: “Over 80 per cent of bank loan defaulters are corporates whose funds are cleared by boards and executives.”
National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE) Tripura unit Secretary Swapan Modak told the media: “Around 4,000 bank employees belonging to about 500 nationalised bank branches in Tripura took part in the strike…”
Government and foreign exchange transactions were also affected due to the shutdown while the ATM machines were being loaded with additional cash.
“We have loaded ATMs with cash of around Rs 15 lakh which would take care of the average cash dispensation for four days,” V. Balasubramanian, President, Financial Software and Systems (FSS), told IANS.
Chennai-based FSS manages ATMs for several banks in the country.
Bank of Maharashtra MD and CEO Ravindra P. Marathe urged his customers to make the maximum use of digital banking services as the strike might disrupt normal banking services at the branches.
Meanwhile, industry lobby body ASSOCHAM urged the UFBU to call off the strike as it might affect customer transactions worth up to Rs 20,000 crore.
Public sector banks (PSBs) are grappling with high levels of bad loans and as per reports their losses for the quarter ended March 2018 are set to hit a record Rs 50,000 crore which is more than double the losses of Rs 19,000 crore in preceding quarter ended December 2017.
“Considering such a precarious situation, we at ASSOCHAM would urge the government to come up with a stimulus plan which must include restoring the PSBs to health,” ASSOCHAM’s Secretary General D.S. Rawat was quoted as saying in a statement.
However, bank unions say the losses are due to provisions for bad loans issued to corporates and “not real losses”.
Union leaders say that if corporate members of lobby bodies pay back their loans or service their loans on time, the bank books would not be in the red.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Economy, Markets, News
New Delhi/Mumbai/Chennai/Kolkata : Banking operations across the country were hit on Tuesday as over 10 lakh bank employees in more than 1,30,000 branches pan-India struck work — protesting against reforms in the banking sector among other issues — thereby affecting cheque-clearing activity. However, private lenders like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank functioned normally.
An official of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) — the umbrella body of nine unions which has given the strike call — said “over 10 lakh bank employees spread in more than 1,30,000 branches across the country struck work hitting cheque-clearing activity”.
Most public sector bank branches visited by IANS correspondents had their shutters down.
Banking operations in Tamil Nadu were affected with around 55,000 bankers striking work pressing for their demands, said a report from Chennai citing a top All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) leader.
“The strike is a huge success. It is a dawn-to-dusk strike as cheque clearing operations start at 6 a.m. Bankers working in around 10,300 branches struck work protesting the policies towards the sector,” AIBEA General Secretary C.H. Venkatachalam told IANS.
Venkatachalam said around 12 lakh financial instruments valued at around Rs 7,300 crore could not be cleared.
Government treasury transactions were impacted. Foreign exchange transactions, import and export bill transactions and sanction of loans, among others, were also affected.
In most of the places, clearing operations, particularly outward clearing, was seriously affected.
Around 42,000 bank employees and officers from Maharashtra joined their colleagues in the daylong nationwide strike, with plans to intensify the agitation, a top official said.
“The strike was a total success in Maharashtra. No banking transactions could be carried out in any bank branches, cheques clearing operations were completely paralysed. Bank ATMs which worked for a couple of hours initially also could not dispense cash later,” said UFBU Convenor Devidas Tuljapurkar.
The strike hit around 42,000 branches of 22 public sector banks including the monolithic State Bank Of India and IDBI, 18 old generation banks, eight foreign banks and 56 Regional Rural Banks in Mumbai and Maharashtra, said AIBEA leader Vishwas Utagi.
Tuljapurkar said the strike was to oppose banks privatisation, banks consolidation and for initiating tough measures against big corporate loan defaulters, besides opposing the increase in service charges and reduction in interest rates on saving accounts by banks, which is an attempt to shift the burden of big loan defaulters onto the common masses.
Several thousand bank employees staged a rally at Azad Maidan in Mumbai which was addressed by leaders of UFBU and its nine affiliated unions.
Discussing plans to intensify the agitation, Tuljapurkar said the bank staffers will now join a march to Parliament on September 15, followed by another two days’ strike in late October-early November.
The strike comes after the talks between UFBU on one side and Indian Banks’ Association, Chief Labour Commissioner and Department of Financial Services (DFS) failed on Friday.
“All India State Bank Officers’ Federation and All India State Bank of India Staff Federation, being part of the UFBU, will participate in the strike. It is likely that our bank will also be impacted by the strike,” State Bank of India (SBI) earlier said in a regulatory filing in the BSE.
Among the 17-point charter of union demands, the main relates to the government’s denial of adequate capital to public sector banks, thus creating conditions for privatisation, an AIBEA statement said on Tuesday.
“The one-day banking strike has been successful as close to 9,500 ATMs and around 3,000 branches are closed with 70,000-100,000 bank employees participating in the protest in West Bengal,” AIBEA’s (West Bengal) General Secretary Rajen Nagar said in Kolkata.
All India Bank Officers’ Association’s (West Bengal) General Secretary Sanjay Das said employees and officers from cooperative and grameen banks including regional rural banks also participated in the strike and private banks’ branches were mostly closed as their employees supported unions’ demand.
“The strike is 100 per cent successful. Bank employees and officers are conducting demonstration in front of banks’ branches and ATMs,” Das said.
Thousands of employees of state-run banks began day-long strike in cities and towns across Karnataka, affecting cash and other transactions for the day, said a report from Bengaluru.
“We have received an overwhelming response from all our members for the strike call in support of our demands, including our opposition to the merger of state-run banks,” state AIBOC General Secretary A.N.K. Murthy told IANS.
In Bengaluru, hundreds of employees of various banks took out a rally and staged demonstrations protesting against the government’s proposal to merge their banks.
Private banks, including ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra, however, opened for business as usual
Banking services were badly affected in the Left-ruled Tripura on Tuesday as most of the major banks remained closed due to the nation-wide employees’ strike.
The striking employees were also demanding compensation to employees for extra work done on account of demonetisation of high value currencies, and booking loan defaulters.
According to Nikhil Das, a leader of the striking employees, around 3,000 bank employees belonging to about 414 branches of 15 nationalised, regional, rural and cooperative banks in the northeastern state took part in the strike in Tripura.
While banking operations across Kerala were hit by Tuesday’s strike, new generation banks were reported to be functioning normally. There were sizeable crowds in front of many ATMs and at some of these, the cash finished by noon. The worst affected were cheque clearing operations.
—IANS
