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New Delhi, August 22: Normal banking operations in public banks may be hit today as the United Forum of Banking Unions (UFBU) has called for a nationwide bank strike against the reforms proposed by the government. Nearly 10 lakh employees of public sector banks are believed to be a part of the nation-wide strike on Tuesday which has been called by unions under the aegis of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU). The United Forum of Banking Unions (UFBU), the umbrella body of nine unions in the banking sector has given its nod for the strike to protest against bank consolidation, loan defaults by large borrowers and inadequate capital support for banks.
The Bank Employees will begin their protest at 10:30 AM at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. As many as 21 public sector banks control 75 per cent of the total business. Banking services like deposits and withdrawals in bank branches, cheque clearance, NEFT and RTGS transactions will be affected. As per reports by PTI, operations at private lenders such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are expected to be normal except delay in cheque clearances. Reports state that the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has already informed customers that functioning of branches and offices may take a hit if the strike takes off.
#BankStrike lets make it a grand success… pic.twitter.com/X7g3KRAgpj
— Manjil Borgohain (@pnbmanjil) August 22, 2017
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) is an umbrella body of nine unions, including All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and claims membership of nearly 10 lakh across banks. After talks with the Centre on proposed reforms failed, General Secretary D T Franco said there was no option left but to go on strike. “As the conciliation meeting before the Chief Labour Commissioner failed, unions are left with no other option but to go on strike. There was no assurance from the government and the management of banks,” PTI quoted Franco. Franco further added all attempts to find solutions to the demands raised by the unions bore no fruit and hence, UFBU decided to proceed with the proposed strike on August 22.
As per M S Jaishankar, the president of the All India SBI Officers’ Coordination Committee no work will take place in public-sector banks. Nearly 10 lakh employees of banks from across the nation will take part in the strike. Meanwhile, General Secretary of AIBEA C.H. Venkatachalam said in a statement on Monday that nearly 1 million bank employees across all 21 public sector banks will go on strike. The Bank employees demand that there should be no privatization of Banks, no merger of Banks, recruitment on all posts, recruitment on compensatory basis, overtime payment during demonetisation, no write-off policy for non-performing assets (NPAs) of corporate loans, declaring a willful default of loans as criminal offense and implementation of recommendations of Parliamentary Committee on the recovery of NPAs. The rise in gross NPAs of all the PSBs to Rs 6.83 lakh crore and this was, however, a major concern and the banking system’s financial health was suffering due to provisioning.
Just a day ahead of the nationwide protest, Vice President of the National Organization of Bank Workers, Ashwani Rana said the government should take responsibility for any inconvenience caused to customers due to the non-operation of banks on account of the strike. “Government and some other authorities have been saying for a long time that they will merge some banks. However, no constructive action has been taken yet. If such a proposal exists, it should be made clear to the stakeholders and management. A notice was sent on August 3, but there has been no response so far. We want clarity on the matter,” Rana was quoted by ANI.
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