6 Days Nationwide Bank Strike In December in Banks


Bank branches will remain closed for upto 6 days in December owing to bank strikes being called by banking union. The All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) has announced that it will go on strike on various days in the month of December 2023, demanding adequate recruitment and opposing outsourcing of permanent jobs.


AIBEA general secretary C H Venkatachalam had pointed out via his tweet that unemployement has risen significantly since 2019 to 2023, demanding adequate reqruitment in all banks and opposed outsourcing of regular jobs.


AIBEA said that in the month of December 2023, the banking association will go on for 6 days strike. Check out the following dates:


December 4: There will be an all India bank strike in Punjab National Bank (PNB), Punjab and Sindh Bank and State Bank of India (SBI)


December 5: There will be an all India bank strike in Bank of Baroda and Bank of India


December 6: There will be an all India bank strike in Canara Bank and Central Bank of India



December 7: There will be an all India bank strike in Indian Bank and UCO Bank.


December 8: There will be an all India bank strike in Union Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra


December 11: There will be an all India bank strike in all Private Banks.

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Banks unions call for two-day strike against proposed privatisation of PSBs


The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, on Tuesday gave a call for a two-day strike from March 15 to protest against the proposed privatisation of two state-owned lenders. In the Union Budget presented last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the privatisation of two Public Sector Banks (PSBs)as part of its disinvestment plan.


The government has already privatised IDBI Bank by selling its majority stake in the lender to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the last four years. It has been decided to oppose the government’s decision to privatise banks during the meeting of UFBU held on Tuesday, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) general secretary C H Venkatachalam said.


“The meeting discussed the various announcements made in the budget of the central government regarding reform measures like privatisation of IDBI Bank and two PSBs, setting up of bad bank, disinvestment in LIC, privatisation of one general insurance company, allowing FDI in insurance sector up to 74 per cent, aggressive disinvestment and sale of public sector undertakings, etc,” he said.


The meeting observed that all these measures are retrograde and hence need to be opposed, he added. After deliberations, it was decided to give the call for a two-day — March 15 and March 16 — strike against the government’s moves, AIBOC general secretary Soumya Datta said.


Members of UFBU include All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), All India Bank Officers’ Association (AIBOA) and Bank Employees Confederation of India (BEFI).


Others are Indian National Bank Employees Federation (INBEF), Indian National Bank Officers Congress (INBOC), National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO)

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IBA Confirms AIBEA - 11th BPS Arrears Payment Will Be Made in Dec 2020

 IBA has confirmed to AIBEA that the permission for making payment of arrears along with revised salary as per 11th Bipartite Wage Settlement was pending with Government and almost finalized.

The promise for making the revised salary payment was made in meeting between IBA and AIBEA on 10th Dec 2020.


Detailed Circular :-



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Bank Strike: Many PSU Banks to Remain Closed Across India on November 26

 

If you have any work pending at your bank, make sure to do it today because most public sectors banks across India are planning to go on strike on Thursday i.e. November 26. Many banks have also issued an alert message to their customers through social media. Banks will resume their services on the next day i.e. November 27. After this, banks will be closed again on November 29 due to fourth Saturday and on November 29, Sunday. Also Read - Finance Minister Asks Banks to Ensure All Accounts Are Linked to Aadhaar by March 2021

Issues & Demands 

1. In support of the call of National Convention of Workers organized by by Central Trade Unions on 7 points common demands and

2. Demanding

  • Stop moves of privatization of banks
  • Strengthen public sector banks 
  • Take tough action against loan defaulters
  • Recover the huge corporate NPAs
  • Increase interest rate on bank deposits
  • Stop outsourcing of regular banking jobs
  • Make adequate recruitment in banks
  • Scrap new pension scheme for bank employees
  • DA linked pension for all bank employees including Co-op bank employees 
  • Revitalize and Strengthen Co-op banks and RRBs

Will digital transactions work?

The 26 November strike will not affect digital transactions and users can still conduct transactions through NetBanking or Mobile Banking. At the same time, you can withdraw money from ATMs.

Why has the strike being called?

The strike has been called against the anti-labour policies of the central government. The All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) on Tuesday said it would be joining the one-day nationwide strike on November 26 called by central trade unions to protest against the government’s anti-labour policies. Ten central trade unions, except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, will observe a nationwide general strike tomorrow.

“The Lok Sabha in its recently held session has passed three new labour enactments by dismantling existing 27 enactments in the name of ‘Ease of Business’, which are purely in the interest of corporates. In the process, 75 per cent of workers are being pushed out of the orbits of labour laws since they will have no legal protection under the new enactment,” the AIBEA said in a release.

Which banks will remain closed?

Notably, AIBEA represents most banks except State Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank. It has four lakh bank employees from various public and old private sector and a few foreign banks as its members. In Maharashtra, around 30,000 bank employees from 10,000 bank branches of public sector banks, old generation private sector banks, regional rural banks and foreign banks are observing the strike, AIBEA release said.

The union said bank employees on November 26 will also focus on their demands such as opposition to bank privatisation, opposition to outsourcing and contract system, adequate recruitment, stern action against big corporate defaulters, increase in rate of interest on bank deposits and reduction in service charges.

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AIBEA Supports For Government Undertaking of 'Yes Bank', Demands Accountability of RBI

All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) on Saturday said the Reserve Bank must be held accountable and the government should start taking all the private sector banks under its fold.

"At the same time, in order to protect the interest of the depositors and bank's clients, Yes Bank should be immediately brought under the public sector. One by one private banks, which are being glorified by the government, are failing. It is high time that the government should take a call and repeat 1969 - all the private banks should be brought under public sector," said C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA.

"The fact that Yes Bank has been ailing with various problems including issues of divergence, non-disclosures, mounting bad loans, inadequate capital, inability to augment capital, etc.

"But the RBI took its own sweet time and after a lot of damage, it has announced the moratorium creating panic amongst the depositors."

The bank union said the RBI, being the regulator, cannot be unaware of the ongoing in Yes Bank.

"If today, the bank has to be closed down due to mismanagement, the RBI cannot extricate itself from the responsibility. Every time, the RBI is failing to take timely steps to prevent such bank debacles. Same thing was observed during United Western Bank and Global Trust Bank," Venketachalam said.

The AIBEA said there were repeated audit reports which pointed out glaring lapses and yet the RBI did no act. Same thing has happened now.

"The government must make RBI answerable and accountable. It is strange that the RBI is putting various banks under Prompt Corrective Action - PCA restrictions. In fact, we feel that the government should bring the RBI under PCA norms," he added.


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Strike call by union this month to protest against merger of PSU banks

Days after bank unions called off a three-day bank strike from March 11, two unions called for another bank strike on March 27 to oppose the mega merger of PSU banks. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced yesterday that the Union Cabinet has approved the plan to merge 10 PSU banks into four larger banks. The merger comes into effect from April 1 this year.

The All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) and All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) have given a joint call for an all-India bank strike on March 27. Their demands include stopping the proposed merger of 10 PSU banks, stopping the privatisation of IDBI Bank and rollback of banking reforms, recovery of bad loans and increase of interest rate on deposits.

C.H. Venkatachalam, general secretary, AIBEA, said, the unions have planned series of protests this month peaking with the strike on March 27. The Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) has also announced a fortnight-long agitation programme to protest against the merger."Banks themselves face problems due to huge pile of bad loans. While the public sector banks made a total gross profit of Rs.150,000 crore for the year ended March 31, 2019, because of total provisions towards bad loans, etc. amounting to Rs.216,000 crore, the banks ended in a net loss of Rs.66,000 crore," Venkatachalam said.

Sitharaman, on the other hand, said the merger plan would enhance customer convenience, better branch service, higher credit flow, and lesser time in loan sanctions. Greater scale and synergy through consolidation would lead to cost benefits which should enable the PSBs enhance their competitiveness and positively impact the Indian banking system, a Finance Ministry statement said.

As per the amalgamation plan, United Bank of India and Oriental Bank of Commerce would be merged with Punjab National Bank, making the proposed entity the second largest public sector bank. It was decided to merge Syndicate Bank with Canara Bank, while Allahabad Bank with Indian Bank. Similarly, Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank are to be consolidated with Union Bank of India.





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Nation-wide strike impacts banking services at PSU banks

Banking operations, including cash withdrawal and cheque clearance, were hit due to two-day nationwide strike by employee unions of public sector banks to press for wage revision.

The strike call has been given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions, including All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) to press for wage revision pending since November 2017.

However, private sector lenders like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank ran operations as usual.

Branches in several parts of the country remained closed and some of the ATMs also went dry, according to reports coming various parts of the country.

Many banks, including State Bank of India (SBI), had informed customers in advance that operations may be impacted to some extent due to the strike.

The strike coincided with the beginning of the Budget session of Parliament and presentation of Union Budget 2020-21.

The UFBU decided to go on strike after its discussion with Indian Banks Association (IBA) on wage revision failed in the recent round of negotiations held on Thursday.

During discussions, the IBA on Thursday improved their offer to 12.5 per cent, but this was not acceptable, the unions said.

"The bank managements and IBA did not come forward to settle the demands with a reasonable increase in salary looking to inflation and heavy workload on the employees," the UFBU said.

However, the IBA in a statement said despite the revised offer of up to 19 per cent hike, including performance linked incentive, made by it during the meeting on Thursday, the unions decided to go ahead with the all-India bank strike.

Wage revision for employees of public sector banks is pending since November 2017.

In the past wage settlement, which was for the period November 1, 2012, to October 31, 2017, employees got a hike of 15 per cent.

The IBA also rejected the unions demand for five-day banking saying, "It is known to all that the economy of the country is going through testing times. Banks being the principal players in economic development, cannot afford to provide lesser number of working days for banking activities."

The banking lobby said the country already has one of the highest numbers of public holidays and adding 26 more holidays would create more problems for the public.

"IBA is claiming five-day banking is not possible due to the tough economic situation in the country. Then how RBI, Department of Financial Services (DFS), NCLT, Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and other central and state departments are working for five days in a week? Are these institutions not worried about the economic slowdown?" asked a section of agitating bankers.
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AIBEA Wants PMC Bank to be Merged with any Public Sector Bank

                                  
Though the 11th Bipartite Wage revision of the Public Sector Banks are still pending for more than two years with the reason of higher Non performing assets (NPA), the employees union of the Public Sector Bank, All India Employees Association (AIBEA) geenral secretary has requested the finance minister to merge the defunct Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative Bank with a Public sector Bank and lift the ban on withdrawal limit.

He said " it is necessary to lift the present ban and order the takeover of this Bank by a Public Sector Bank (PSB). We strongly feel that the City Co-Operative Urban Bank is a fit case for being merged with a Public sector Bank and its present licence should be cancelled forthwith.


Mr Venkatachalam also appealed to Finance Minister Ms Sitharaman to merge all Co-op Banks into PSU banks to avoid loot of deposits in the hands of political leaders who normally control them and convert the deposits into bad loans and put the depositors in dire financial stress when RBI applies the brakes through Audit and Inspection Department (AID) by applying 35 A restrictions, Make RBI accountable as single window to all depositors in Indian Union rather than dual reporting to RBI and Registrar of Co-op Societies in case of Co-op banks and in the bargain having no accountability with both washing off their responsibilities.

I don't know what to say about AIBEA approach but I believe that at this moment the much needed work is to settle the long pending salary of the bank employees and it is to remind the AIBEA leadership that there are more employees and their dependents suffering due to non settlement of the 11th bipartite as compare to PMC bank. First to look after the hunger of our own house than others.

Source - bipartitesettlement.com
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Suggestions given by AIBEA to the Finance Minister

The rate of interest on savings bank deposits needs to be revised upwards by at least 2 per cent and interest on fixed deposits should be exempted from the purview of income tax, according to suggestions made by the All India Bank Employees’ Association(AIBEA) to the Finance Minister.
The association said banks should extend agriculture loan at the rate of 2 per cent per annum. Further, they should extend education loan at concessional rate of interest of 5 per cent to the poorer sections, with interest subvention.
Since non-performing assets of the banks have risen phenomenally, the Government should institute more Debt Recovery Tribunals and Fast Track Courts to recover the bad loans.
“The Reserve Bank of India should publish the list of defaulters, who owe the banks more than Rs. 1 crore. This defaulters list should be published every six months with updates.
“Section 45 of the RBI Act should be suitably amended to provide powers to RBI to publish the name of any defaulter in public interest,” said CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA.
Venkatachalam emphasised that bank loan defaulters should be prohibited from contesting in any of the elections to local body or Legislative Assembly or Parliament or to hold any public office of profit. Any such person, who holds such position at present should be made to relinquish their positions, he added.
The association alleged that the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is facilitating the corporate defaulters to get away easily as the banks are forced to bear enormous “write-off” of bad loans in the name of “hair-cuts”.
“IBC favours resolution of bad loans instead of recovery. Hence, recovery mechanism should be strengthened instead of resolution process. To facilitate recovery, recovery laws should be enacted/amended to confiscate the personal assets of the Directors in case of default by a company, in which they are directors,” the Association said.
The AIBEA said banks should be advised to institute a separate vertical, headed by a General Manager, for recovery in “Prudentially Written Off/ Technically Written Off” accounts. The details of such recovery should be placed before the boards of the Banks and submitted to the Ministry of Finance on a quarterly basis.
“A system must be evolved to ensure accountability and responsibility on the part of the Managing Directors & CEOs/Executive Directors and other executives of the public sector banks in respect of sanction of credit, which which tun into NPA within one year (quick mortality cases),” said Venkatachalam.
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Crack within UFBU may affect wage revision talks


A major crack has surfaced between bank officers and workmen unions over the issue of wage settlement, threatening to hamper the 11th bipartite negotiation. 

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) -- the umbrella body of nine trade unions -- which holds wage revision talks on the behalf of their members with the Indian Banks' Association (IBA), is even facing a split if the matter is not resolved fast. The two of the officers organisations abstained from the negotiation table in the last round of talks. 

The fight erupted between UFBU members following an IBA proposal of bank-wise wage settlement for senior officers from scale IV and above. Six banks -- State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank and Union Bank of India -- have mandated IBA to restrict the wage rise offer to officers up to scale III. These banks proposed to fix compensation for their senior officers independent of the bipartite negotiation, and based on their paying capacity. 

In other words, these banks with better financials than the rest have shown willingness to offer higher remuneration package to their officers -- from chief managers to general managers. 

The 21 public sector banks employ over 10 lakh people. About 3.5 lakh are officers with about 60-65% of them being from these six banks. However, about 90% of the officers in all banks taken together fall in the scale I to scale III category. 


Protesting against the split mandate to IBA, the All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) -- the largest officers’ organization -- abstained from the last negotiation talks held on February 2 in Mumbai. At that meeting where two other bank officers unions were present, IBA raised its wage increase proposal to 10% from the previous 8% offer. AIBOC had walked out of the negotiation table on November 30 as well. 

“We want expeditious settlement of wages. We have appealed AIBOC leadership to return to the negotiation table,” AIBEA president Rajen Nagar told ET on Thursday. 

“If AIBOC does not return to the table, then workmen need to take a view of the situation. We cannot wait indefinitely,” Nagar said. 

Earlier, AIBOC criticized AIBEA general secretary CH Venkatachalam for reportedly inciting a split within UFBU. 

“He (Venkatachalam) has stated that the present offer of IBA is more in quantitative terms than the quantum paid in the 10th bipartite settlement. He has also said the officers’ associations are creating impediment to the settlement. We strongly denounce unilateral pronouncement of one constituent of UFBU on the merit of the present offer of IBA which is very likely to jeopardize the ongoing negotiation,” AIBOC general secretary Soumya Datta had said last Saturday. 

"We seek your immediate intervention at this critical juncture so that the edifice of joint movement do not suffer," Datta said in a letter to UFBU. 


National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO) also did not take part at the February 2 meeting while All Indian All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) and Indian National Bank Officers Congress (INBOC) were present. 


“His (Venkatachalam’s) statement has been distorted. He has only narrated the truth at a union meeting in Kanpur,” AIBEA’s Nagar said. “The fact remains that we have rejected IBA’s 10% offer,” he said. 

The 11th bipartite settlement is due from November 1, 2017.  
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150 million Indians to go on strike against Modi’s “anti-labour” policies

Daily life across India might come to a screeching halt as nearly 150 million employees across banks, public transport, factories, and government companies go on a two-day strike from tomorrow (Jan. 08).
The strike has been called by 10 trade unions across the country against what they believe are anti-labour policies of prime minister Narendra Modi’s government. Employees from the power, steel, auto, and financial services sector will participate in this “historic event.”

The strike will also be joined by farmers, who have been protesting against the agrarian crisis in the country for several months now.
“The government has been pursuing anti-economic and anti-labour policies which has forced us to go on this strike,” CH Venkatachalam, general secretary of the All India Banks Employees’ Association (AIBEA), one of the trade unions that is participating in the protest, told Quartz. “For instance, prices of commodities have been going up and even the essential goods are not available in fair price shops and the government doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.”
Founded in 1946, AIBEA is India’s oldest and largest bank employees’ union with around 500,000 members.
Another reason for the protest is the fact that India is not creating enough jobs. Ahead of the last general elections, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised to create nearly 10 million jobs every year. Despite these tall claims, the employment scenario in the country is so dismal that in the last financial year the total number of employees in India came down, instead of going up.
Another sore point for the trade unions is that a large number of public sector companies are struggling, forcing the government to divest its stake in them or merge them with healthier ones. For instance, in November 2018, the cabinet approved the stake sale of government-owned Dredging Corporation of India to a consortium of four ports.

“The public sector companies have a lion’s share in the economy and therefore steps must be taken to strengthen them instead of privatising them as it may lead to various problems,” Venkatachalam said.
This is the second time in less than a fortnight that bank employees are going on a strike against bank mergers. In September last year, the government had announced the merger of Dena Bank with Vijaya Bank and Bank of Baroda (BOB), which will come into effect from April 01, 2019. Last month, nearly a million bank employees had observed a one-day strike against the merger. However, soon after the last strike, the cabinet approved the merger proving the strike to be futile.
In a filing to the stock exchanges, many banks have already said that the strikes this week may impact their services. “In the event of AIBEA and BEFI proceeding on strike on January 8-9, 2019, the functioning of bank’s branches/offices in some of the zones may be affected,” BOB informed the exchanges on Jan. 05.
This is a situation that has played out in India several times where it has been proven that strikes yield very little results apart from inconveniencing the general public.
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Today bipartite settlement meeting updates - UFBU to go on strike in December


Today's meeting with IBA was futile and AIBEA GS C.H. Venkatachalam has posted the status as :


In today meeting IBA improved their offer to 8%. We replied it is far below our expectation and urged upon them to improve their offer. We also demanded full mandate. These issues will be pursued further. Thereafter UFBU meeting decided to go on strike on 26th Dec. against merger of BOB, Dena and Vijaya bank. 
Circular follows.. -Chv aibea



Interestingly strike on 26th December was called not against the IBA offers rather against the merger of Bank of Baroda with Dena and Vijaya Bank. 
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AIBEA planned for two days continuous countrywide strike


The Central Trade Unions, independent federations and associations carried forward the decisions adopted in the National Convention of Workers on 8th August, 2017 at Talkatora Stadium. The successful holding of three day mahapadav on 9th–10th–11th November, 2017 after about more than three months extensive countrywide campaign was a landmark in the ongoing struggle to fight back the onslaught of the government against working people and their trade unions, against hard won labour rights, anti labour and pro-employer  codifications and violations of existing labour laws and violation of ILO Conventions. AIBEA planned for Two Days Continous Countrywide Strike on 8th & 9th January,2019.






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AIBEA opposed to employee stock purchase scheme(ESPS)

All India Bank Employees' Association has said that it is opposed to the share sale of public sector banks’ capital to employees as it sees this as an attempt by the government to dilute its shareholding in these banks and boost its privatisation agenda.


The association said that it has been opposing the sale of banks’ shares to private entities, both corporate and individuals. In the same breath, as a trade union, it is opposed to the sale of banks’ capital to employees.

The union emphasised that the Government should not dilute its stake in the banks in any manner and adequate capital must be subscribed by it whenever warranted.

Referring to managements' advocacy that if employees would purchase the share capital of the banks, there would be a sense of belonging to the bank, a better sense of commitment to the bank and also a sense of ownership, C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary, said that any part of capital that is not subscribed by the Government will dilute the ownership status of the banks and sale of shares to employees is no different.

He said: "Can we believe that by buying a few shares of the bank, we can feel that we are owners of the bank? Will the Government or managements really like the idea of employees becoming owners of the bank?

"In fact they do not want even workers’ participation. For the past 4 years, the post of employee director and officer director in all the banks is not appointed. They do not want us to be even a director of the bank and they want to us be owners!"

"As employees, we do owe a sense of commitment to our duties and responsibilities but we do not believe that by purchasing some shares of the bank, we will be more committed to the bank. We are always loyal and committed to the banks, even without owning some shares of the bank.


"We want our banks to progress and come out of the present problems created by huge bad loans. That is the only problem facing the banks. Buying some shares of the bank will not help to recover these bad loans. Tough action should be taken to recover the bad loans," he said.

If bad loans are recovered, then there will be automatic generation of capital, Venkatchalam said, adding that buying some shares of the banks by the staff is not necessary for the progress of their banks.
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