Rejecting the wage hike of 8 percent offered by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), bank unions across the country have decided to go on a strike on December 26.
“It is far below our expectation. We have urged upon them to improve their offer,” said Rajen Nagar, president at All Indian Bank Employees Association.
Troubled with the rising menace of Non-Performing Assets and successive quarterly losses, banks are planning to restrict the salary hikes and remunerations while unions are demanding at least a raise of 15 percent like they get under the 10th bipartite settlement.
The salary revision of the bank employees as per the 11th bipartite settlement is pending since November 1, 2017. Wage revision in public sector banks takes place every five years.
While IBA’s wage hike offers limits employees under scale 1 to 3, nine unions, under the banner of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) demanded wage negotiation for bank employees under scale 1 to 7. The bank lobby group favours bank wise wage settlement for senior employees of scale 4 and above.
Unions have also refused to accept the proposal to introduce variable pay, which would be linked to the return on assets and operating profit and would be part of the overall wage hike.
Further, all India bank strike would also highlight unions’ opposition against bank mergers.
