Bank Strike Latest News 2018 – Another Bank Strike on 21st Dec 2018
ALL INDIA STATE BANK OFFICERS’ FEDERATION
CIRCULAR NO.143
DATE: 04.12.2018
TO ALL OUR AFFILIATES/MEMBERS:
XI BPS – Wage revision talks dated 30.11.2018
AIBOC Walks out of the meeting and Calls for a Strike on 21st December, 2018
We reproduce hereunder the text of AIBOC Circular No. 2018/87 dated 03RD December, 2018 contents of which are self-explicit
(RAMKUMAR SABAPATHY)
GENERAL SECRETARY
TEXT
QUOTE:
As we complete 13 months from the effective date for the XIth Bipartite settlement, the officers and workmen in the Indian Banking Industry are looking at each round of negotiations with great amount hope. But to our angst and dismay IBA had not been offering any solutions to our issues and the latest round of Bipartite negotiations held at Mumbai on 30th November 2018 was no exception in terms of what IBA had to offer.
Also Read :Â All India Bank Strike on 26th Dec 2018
02. The Executive Committee Meeting of the Confederation held at Kolkata during 27th & 28th November 2018 had extensively deliberated on this burning issues and it was unanimously decided that if the situation continue in the same vein in the meeting on 30th November, the negotiating team of AIBOC should take a principled stand and excuse themselves out of the meeting. This was because these meetings as it were, are defying the basic tenets of proper negotiations on two broad counts.
In spite of majority of the Banks submitting ‘unconditional mandate’, IBA refusing to start negotiations up to scale VII, thereby disrespecting those Bank Managements and trying to divide the officers on grades.
Any negotiations will happen on the basis of the charter of demand submitted by the respective associations. But IBA was continuing to turn a blind eye to our charter of demand wherein we have clearly stated that officer community would like to have its salary revised on the basis of the ‘minimum wage concept’.
As a responsible association, AIBOC could no longer be a party to such meaningless exercises which are summarily playing with the sentiments and aspirations of the officer community.
03. It was in this background that the negotiating team of AIBOC entered the last round of wage revision talks held at Mumbai at the office of IBA 30.11.2018, AIBOC representatives wanted clarity on the mandate issue from the IBA representatives as the issue remained unresolved. In every meeting AIBOC had been asserting that unless the mandate issue was not resolved and a full and clear mandate from Scale I to Scale VII was obtained, it was pointless to proceed to the talks. However, the IBA representatives could not come up with any satisfactory assurance as they stated it was the decision of the individual Banks. Incidentally, representatives from three Banks, which had not given a mandate, were members of the negotiating team viz., SBI, Union Bank and Bank of Baroda. Upon hearing the reply of the IBA representatives, the AIBOC representatives unequivocally communicated that they too were also carrying the mandate of the National Executive Committee, which had taken a unanimous view that AIBOC will excuse themselves from the proceedings. Accordingly, after registering protest for the regressive attitude of IBA on the issue of mandate, the undersigned and Comrade Dilip Saha excused themselves from the proceedings and as a consequence the meeting was adjourned.
04. Incidentally, IBA in the said meeting was represented by Shri Rajkiran Rai, MD and CEO of Union Bank of India, Chairman, Negotiating Committee superannuated along with the other members of Team – Shri P.S.Jayakumar, MD and CEO, Bank of Baroda, Shri Shyam Srinivasan, MD and CEO, Federal Bank, Shri Prashant Kumar, DMD, State Bank of India, Shri Mukesh Kumar Jain, MD and CEO, OBC, Shri V.G.Kannan, CEO, IBA, Shri G.Rajkumar, Deputy CEO, IBA, Shri S.K.Kakkar, Sr.Vice President, HR & IR, Shri K.S.Chauhan, Advisor, HR & IR besides officials of HR Department. The representatives of nine constituents of UFBU participated in the Negotiation.
05. Chairman, Negotiating Committee of IBA at the outset had proposed an increase in the offer from 6% to 8% on payslip components. He had also stated that variable pay component of 8.2% would also be made available as mentioned in their earlier presentation, which would depend upon Return on Assets [ROA] and Gross Operating Profit of the respective Banks.
06. Your attention is also invited to the fact that IBA is harping on the paying capacity of the Banks as a precondition to salary negotiations. This is nothing but singing a tune composed by the ‘private sector’. Banking, being a service industry where the common man comes for his daily banking needs was never a profit oriented industry. We all know what we earn as profits in return for carrying forward all the Government Schemes and Programs? Historically, it is the public sector banks who have wholeheartedly carried forward the implementation part of all the financial schemes of various governments. We have always looked upon it as doing our humble part in ‘Nation Building’. Can anyone compare the levels to which the New Generation Private Sector Banks, where the so called ‘performance linked pay’ is the prevailing norm, have carried forward the Government Schemes and Programs?
07. It is only AIBOC’s voice that is resonating in the Banking space asking many pertinent questions:-
The employees who are going to be benefitted out of this salary revision are not the creators of the humongous NPA menace that the Banking industry faces. It is not the employees who ordered to convert all the infrastructure lending institutions as commercial banks which ultimately led to huge ALM mismatches in the industry and eventually added huge amounts of NPAs into commercial Bank’s kitty. It is not the employees we who decided to apply huge provisioning norms in our country even stricter than the countries from where these norms originated. These norms converted all the operating profits into net losses. How can these ‘manufactured net losses’ be a criterion for determining the salaries of the employees and how can any officer / workmen be responsible for this huge fiasco?
There are similar issues that the officer community is directly affected and it is the bounden duty of AIBOC to take up these issues and bring it to a logical conclusion.
08. Subsequently to the meeting with IBA, in the meeting of UFBU constituents, our stand of walking out of the proceedings was questioned. We made it abundantly clear that it is not only our commitment but also our principled stand that Officers’ community shall not and must not be divided on the terms of grades and a full and clear mandate was the top priority to proceed further with the talks. We also made clear that unless the mandate issue was resolved AIBOC would not be taking part in any further talks. We further unambiguously affirmed that we shall not compromise on our principled stand on the issue of mandate under any circumstances.
We, against the backdrop, also announced that in view of the unrelenting attitude of IBA, will call for a nationwide strike on the issue of mandate and other related issues on 21st December, 2018 under the aegis of AIBOC and urged other constituents to join the call. During the course of discussions, we assured our participation in the UFBU strike call on 26th December, 2018 on the issue of merger of the three Banks viz. Vijaya Bank, Bank of Baroda and Dena Bank.
09. Comrades, being the largest Association of Supervisory cadre, we have the colossal responsibility of not only ensuring a decent, acceptable wage revision as per the Charter of Demands, but also to protect the public sector character and nature of PSBs and its welfare. We call upon our members to remain alert and also to be in the highest stage of readiness for ensuring the total success of the strike call and to participate wholeheartedly in all organisational and agitational programs culminating in the strike call of 21st December, 2018 and 26th December, 2018.
AIBOC has a history of keeping the interests of the officer community at the forefront and we have been clear in our stand and objective. When people are deliberately ignoring the legitimate demands, we will have to wake them up and make them listen and act. We are sure that the cadre of AIBOC has the power to wake the ‘powers that be’. Let us assemble under the banner of AIBOC and march ahead. The ultimate victory shall be ours.
With revolutionary greetings,
Comradely yours,
SD/-
(Soumya Datta)
General Secretary
Source :Â http://aisbof.org
