PSBs may work for only one day till Wednesday

New Delhi: A union of public sector bank officers has called for a strike on Friday, demanding immediate wage revision and protesting merger of the state-owned banks.

The strike call given by the All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) expected to hit banking operations across the country. However, private sector banks would continue their usual business as they are not part of the strike.

Most of the banks have already informed their customers about the strike and its impact on their normal banking operation.

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of the top nine bank unions, has also decided to observe a strike on December 26.

Taking into account these two days of unions' strike and other holidays, banks would be closed for most of the extended Christmas weekend. So, most bank branches will be open only for a day between this Friday and next Wednesday. Till December 26, there are three holidays — fourth Saturday on December 22, then Sunday and then Christmas on Tuesday.

AIBOC joint general secretary Ravinder Gupta said, "We have demanded wage revision based on the minimum wages formula without linking to profits or paying capacity."

Besides, the union has also opposed the proposed merger Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank.

As of now many major banks have not given the mandate, few banks have given mandate to IBA for negotiating only upto Scale III officers, said Charanjit deputy general secretary Canara Bank Officers' Association, an affiliate of AIBOC said.

Such fractured mandate will be resulting in deep cut of allocated funds meant for distributing among the various heads of pay slip components, Gupta said.

As the allocated funds would be the agreed percentage of total pay slip components of up to scale III in respect of those banks which have given mandate and not the pay slip components of the entire industry of all the cadres including workmen, he added.

ATM operations on December 21 during the bank strike may remain unaffected, an official of the association said.

"We will not use any force to close the ATMs. The employees engaged in ATMs are not controlled by officers' bodies," AIBOC assistant general secretary Sanjay Das said.

However, ATM operations may be hit on December 26, the day the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has called a strike.