Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Continuing impasse

With the State Bank of India employees rejecting the Union Finance Minister's appeal to call off their strike, the hope of the deadlock ending seems bleak. Lakhs of government employees and pensioners continue to suffer. The Government should provide some kind of interim relief through some other bank or the RBI to their employees and pensioners. It can be adjusted against future payments.

K. Sundaresan,
Thanjavur, T.N.

* * *

The strike paints a grim picture of the Government's attitude towards the welfare of the working class. On the one hand, it distributes freebies to big corporate companies by offering them tax holidays in the name of promoting industrialisation.

On the other, it curtails even old age benefits like pension of hapless government employees. Some of the demands of the striking employees are as old as 13 years. The media should highlight the reasonableness of the agitation rather than taking a biased view.

C. Vikas,
Dhanbad, Jharkhand

* * *

The Government and the SBI management are equally to blame for the delay in settling the long-pending pension issue. The management happily postponed it for 13 years despite many wage agreements reached with the employees. It should at least have woken up well before the staff resorted to the strike. Let the Finance Minister, who is aware of the capacity of the banking staff, negotiate wholeheartedly for an amicable settlement.

R. Purushothama Rao,
Guntur, A.P.

* * *

By observing indefinite strike, the SBI staff are holding the country to ransom, putting a vast number of people to extreme hardship directly and indirectly. If their demands are acceded to under such pressure, it will send a wrong signal to the country in general and the banking industry in particular. This will further boost their monopolistic arrogance.

Sandeep Gupta,
Meerut, U.P

* * *

My view on the low salary drawn by bank employees vis-à-vis employees of MNCs and private companies seems to have "amused" a reader (Letters, April 7) who has drawn attention to the courteousness and accountability of MNC staff. Bank employees, on the one hand, work in constant fear of being pulled up during audit and inspection when they relax rules for their customers. On the other, if they go by the rulebook, the management gives them a sermon on how the customer is always right. It is not as if private companies do not provide poor service at all.

H. Nagesh Bhandarkar,
Chennai

* * *

How can one compare the salaries of public sector staff with those of MNCs? Instead, one should compare the salaries of SBI staff with those of the employees of the Central and State Governments, and other private sector companies. .

K.V. Ravindran,
Payyanur, Kerala

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Useful despite limitations
A beacon for the oppressed
Mass leadership and backroom politics
The knight versus the professor
South Asia should unite behind one of its own
A bus service going nowhere?
Corrections and clarifications
Shocking proposal
Insurmountable
Continuing impasse

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu