9 bank employee unions to strike work today

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 28

Residents planning to make transactions at public sector banks tomorrow may have to cancel their plan as one million bank workmen and officers will observe a country wide strike tomorrow against banking reforms by the government.

The strike call was given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU).

The bank officers criticised the slapping of merger resolution of the associate banks with the State Bank of India (SBI).

They demanded immediate resolution to all pending issues of the last Bipartite Settlement particularly DA neutralisation, revision in family pension, pension update/ upgrade, extension of existing pension to all officers/ employees who joined the banking industry after April 1, 2010, (NPS optees).

Chaman Singla, an office-bearer of ABOA, said at present, SBI had more than 500 branches working in a state.

As a whole, there were 1,137 branches of the State Bank Group (which includes the State Bank of Patiala, Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Hyderabad) working and operating in the state.

Singla demanded that a local head office (LHO) be created after merger into the State Bank of India.

Singla said every state had its own languages and the revenue record was also available in local language.

He said the State Bank of Patiala was the only public sector bank in India which had its Head Office in Punjab and having 400 rural branches and 300 semi-urban branches in Punjab.

He said the farm sector and the common man were beneficiaries of the bank as the head office and 4-5 zonal offices of the bank were working in Punjab.

Chaman Singla said the ABOA was not against merger, but they had some genuine demands.

Major demands

• Acquisition of associate banks be at par without discrimination
• All supervisory staff be taken into confidence, prior to acquisition, on all matters concerning them
• Issues including protection of seniority, one-time inter-circle transfer option, special compensatory allowance, additional increments, transfer policy and promotion policy be looked after
• All benefits available to the officers in the SBI to be passed on to the officers in associate banks right from a common date, the date on which acquisition is cleared or the first appointed date of acquisition of any of the associate banks 
• All head offices of individual associate banks are to be converted into separate local head offices of the SBI and as such head office of the SBP should be converted into local head office of the SBI at Patiala
• Creation of a local head office in Patiala which will control more than 1,137 offices in Punjab 
• The existing local head office of SBI at Chandigarh will take care of branches of Chandigarh, Haryana, HP and J&K