Date:26/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/26/stories/2008012656220400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Transactions hit as bank strike is total

Special Correspondent

Employees’ unions seek meeting with Indian Banks’ Association to resolve pension issue

About 5,000 branches of various banks down their shutters
About one million employees participate in strike

— Photo: K.Gopinathan

No business: The Bangalore main branch of the State Bank of Mysore wears a deserted look on Friday owing to the strike by bank employees.

BANGALORE: Reports from different parts of the State revealed that there was a total halt to banking business and transaction on Friday following the strike call given by nine different bank trade unions under United Federation of Bank Unions (UFBU) and the All India State Bank Officers Federation and All India State Bank of India Staff Federation.

In the State capital, all public sector banks had opened their shutters in the morning but when the officials and the clerical staff did not turn up for work, the branches could not function. Customers who had come to the banks for their transaction could not get service. About 5,000 branches belonging to State Bank group, public sector commercial banks and private commercial banks downed their shutters in all the districts. However, all the automated teller machines (ATMs) belonging to various banks and the networked ATMs were working in the State except for few ATMs which were “cashed out” and no bank official was available to deposit fresh stock of cash.

Employees and trade union leaders belonging to banks such as Karnataka Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank, and Catholic Syrian Bank had also joined the strike.

According to the general secretary of All India State Bank Officers’ Federation G.D. Nadaf, the alternative option on pension scheme given by the banking trade unions was not acceptable to the Indian Banks Association (IBA). The bank unions had estimated that the pension fund could be contained at Rs. 4,700 crore. This estimation was done by the actuary of the bank unions, although the IBA actuary had put the figure at Rs. 26,000 crore, which the union says was a “gross overestimate.”

Mr. Nadaf, who addressed the striking bankers at the State Bank of Mysore headquarters on Kempe Gowda Road, said that the IBA should arrange a meeting of both actuaries and allow them to present their cases.

At the venue where the striking unions demonstrated in Bangalore, leaders belonging to the UFBU and State Bank Federations addressed the demonstrators and called upon the bank managements and the IBA to “see reason” with respect to the various demands that were presented to them.

According to joint general secretary of AIBOC T.R. Bhat, bank branches in Mangalore, Udupi, Uttara Kannada, Kolar, Ramangara, Bangalore Rural and Urban, Kodagu, Bellary, Davangere, Chitradurga, Belgaum, Dharwad and Hubli were closed and no transaction took place.

The AIBOC release issued here on Friday put the number of bank employees who participated in the strike at one million in the country. The release said the bank trade unions wanted the government to stop the mergers of the public sector banks, to extend one more option to the provident fund members to join pension scheme, to fill up all unfilled vacancies by fresh recruitment, to stop outsourcing normal banking jobs and services and early settlement of wage revision.