February 17, 2015
AIBEA wants FM to Intervene to Solve Wage Revision
Days ahead of a proposed #strike by #PSU #banks' #employee unions, a top union leader today sought the intervention of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to resolve the over two-year-old wage hike issue.
Public sector bank employee unions have threatened to go on a nationwide four-day strike beginning February 25 over the wage hike issue.
C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary of All-India Bank Employees Association (#AIBEA), said Jaitley should intervene immediately to settle the long-pending issue.
The association is a major constituent of United Forum of Bank Unions (#UFBU) which has given the strike call.
"Jaitley's immediate intervention is necessary in view of the four-day strike (which coincides with #Budget presentation) and also the call for indefinite strike from March 16 in support of our demands," he told PTI over telephone.
"Wage revision in the banking industry is governed by bilateral agreement between the Indian Banks' Association (the management body) and the bank unions once in five years," Venkatachalam said.
The last wage pact expired in October 2012 and hence a wage revision for bank employees and officers is due from November 2012, he said.
#IBA had first bettered its earlier offer of 11 per cent wage hike to 12.5 per cent and then again to 13 per cent.
The unions, however, are demanding 19 per cent increase in wages.
Earlier, unions had deferred one-day strike scheduled for January 7 as IBA improved the wage hike offer to 12.5 per cent from 11 per cent earlier.
Following this, unions also deferred the proposed four-day strike from January 21 after the management of banks (IBA) assured that wage-related issues will be resolved by early February.
There are 27 government-owned banks in India with a combined employee strength of about 8 lakh. These lenders have around 50,000 branches across the country.
February 14, 2015
1 Rupee Note Back on Circulation
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today said that it will soon put in circulation of currency notes in one rupee (Re 1) denomination. The notes will be printed by the Government of India. The government had discontinued priting Re 1 notes in November 1994 due to higher printing costs.
The RBI Act confers upon the right to the central bank to issue all notes, except Re 1. Such notes are issued by the government and bears the signature of finance secretary. All other denomination notes are signed by the governor of RBI.The central bank has been gradually withdrawing lower denomination currency noted as the perceived benefit is lesser than the cost of printing such notes. Banking industry experts has termed the move to re-start printing of notes as more of symbolic as Re 1 coins are expected to be more in circulation.
As per the RBI Annual Report for 2013-14, there were 38424 million pieces of Re 1 coins in circulation (March 2014) and had seen a 7.07 per cent growth in its volumes compared to March 2013
February 11, 2015
February 10, 2015
Strike Notice By All unions
To The Chairman,
Indian Banks’ Association,
World Trade Centre,
Cuffe Parade,
Mumbai.
Sir,In accordance with the provisions contained in sub-section (1) of Section 22 of the I.D. Act – 1947, we hereby give you notice that the members of all the constituent unions of United Forum of Bank Unions ( AIBEA, AIBOC, NCBE, AIBOA, BEFI, INBEF, INBOC, NOBW, NOBO)propose to go on
(i) Four days’ Strike from the 25th February 2015 to 28th February 2015;and
(ii) Indefinite Strike from 16th March 2015 onwards.
Demanding:
1. IMMEDIATE SETTLEMENT OF WAGE REVISION;
2. IMMEDIATE RESOLUTION OF OTHER RELATED ISSUES
The details of the programme and the Statement of the case are furnished herein.
Sd/-(M.V. MURALI)CONVENOR
Encl. :
1. Details of Agitational Programme
2. Statement of the Case
Copy to1.
Chief Labour Commissioner (Central),
New Delhi2.
CMDs/MDs/CEOs of All Banks
ALL INDIA BANK STRIKE PROGRAMMES:
9th February 2015 Centralised Demonstrations at all centres
13th February 2015 Centralised Demonstrations at all centres
20th February 2015 Badge Wearing & Demonstrations
23rd February 2015 Press Meet in all State capitals
24th February 2015 Centralised Demonstrations at all centres
25th to 28th February 2015 FOUR DAYS’ ALL INDIA BANK STRIKE
16th March onwards INDEFINITE STRIKE
Other Action Programmes in the interregnum between 1st March 2015 and 15th March 2015
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
1. DEMANDING IMMEDIATE WAGE REVISION SETTLEMENT:
Wages and service conditions in the banking sector are governed by the industry-level bipartite settlements signed between the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and the workmen unions and officers’ associations operating in the banking industry. All the banks which have given mandate to IBA to negotiate on behalf of them are parties to the settlements. United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), representing five workmen unions and four officers’ associations, is currently negotiating with IBA for revision of wages to bank workmen/officers.
The wage revision for bank employees is due from 01.11.2012 subsequent to the expiry of the last Bipartite Settlement on 31.10.2012. The common charter of demands, separately for workmen and officers, were submitted by UFBU to IBA on 30.10.2012 i.e., before the expiry of last bipartite settlement.UFBU has been requesting, since the start of negotiations, for a time-bound approach to hold the negotiations on its demands and for conclusion of wage settlement within a reasonable time. But the IBA has inordinately delayed the negotiation process and there is no significant progress in the wage negotiations despite a lapse of nearly two years’ time.
IBA has been adamant in its offer of increase since beginning quoting the reason of non-affordability of banks and even brought stalemate in negotiations by sticking to its offer of 11% in pay slip components for nearly a year. With the intervention of CLC (C) in the last conciliation held on 5th January 2015, the negotiations were held by IBA with UFBU on 6th and 7th January 2015 and IBA increased its offer from 11% to 12.5% in pay slip components, with an assurance to have further flexibility, while UFBU reduced its demand from 23% to 19.5%.
It will not be out of place to mention here that UFBU put on hold its four days’ strike from 21st to 24th January 2015 in the background of an assurance given by IBA towards that they would further pursue the matter with Government and deliberate in the Managing Committee Meeting of IBA to be held on the 31st January 2015 with all sincerity and hold discussions with us in the first week of February 2015 to improve the offer further to reach finality at the earliest.But, much to our dismay, IBA has backtracked from its assurance and once again with its slogan of non-affordability of banks, offered a paltry increase of 0.5% over the earlier increase offer of 12.5%, which is considered by UFBU as inadequate and not satisfactory.
Hence, once again UFBU has been pushed to the path of agitation. With utmost patience, for the last two years, UFBU has been making its best efforts to settle the demands amicably, whereas the flexibility shown by UFBU is not at all being reciprocated by IBA.
We also submit that IBA is not giving any cognizance to the difficulties that are faced by the employees on account of high rate of inflation, which has eroded the salaries of the employees to a great extent and the wage increases considered in other similar Public Sector undertakings despite their low profits.
Further, bank employees, workmen and officers, have been performing well despite severe stress due to substantial increase in workload in the banks on account of opening of many branches under Financial Inclusion and so on despite inadequate staff strength. Bank employees never lagged behind in the successful implementation of all Government sponsored programmes/schemes, including the recently implemented Prime Minister’s Jan DhanYojna. However, the bank employees are not being paid adequately.
HENCE, THIS DEMAND FOR IMMEDIATE SETTLEMENT OF WAGE REVISION.
2. IMMEDIATE RESOLUTION OF OTHER RELATED ISSUES:
The common charter of demands, separately for workmen and officers, were submitted by UFBU to IBA on 30.10.2012 i.e., before the expiry of last bipartite settlement. Several issues relating to workmen and officers other than the wage increase were also listed in the common charter of demands and submitted to IBA are yet to be resolved. The prominent issues such as 5-day banking, Regulated working hours to officers, Improvements in Pension Scheme, Improvements in other perquisites and allowances, etc. are yet to be resolved and simultaneous resolution of all those issues listed in the common charter of demands is also essential for expeditious settlement on wages and service conditions.HENCE, THIS DEMAND FOR IMMEDIATE RESOLUTION OF OTHER RELATED ISSUES.
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