Lucknow. To implement five-day banking and speedy disposal of remaining issues, bank employees worked wearing black badges in Lucknow on Tuesday. Senior officials of the Forum staged a dharna at the State Bank main branch while public sector bank employees also staged a massive demonstration at 5 pm. Giving this information, UFBU District Convenor Anil Srivastava said that bank employees have been forced to agitate due to the continuous neglect of the Central Government.
Bank union sticks to decision of three-day strike
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has said they will proceed with a three-day nationwide strike starting from September 28 as the conciliation meeting held before the Deputy Chief Labor Commissioner on Tuesday remained inconclusive. The conciliation meeting took place a day after the Finance Ministry appealed to bank employees not to go on strike and resolve their outstanding issues through talks.
The UFBU, which claims to represent 90 per cent of banking employees, is mainly demanding 5-day banking service along with other demands. If this strike happens, banking services may be affected for five days as there is a weekend holiday before September 28. This will also be the time of half yearly ‘closing’ of the banking sector.
The state level dharna was led by senior bank leaders of all the seven constituents of the Forum, Comrades YK Arora, Dinesh Kumar Singh, Ajay Pandey, SK Sangtani, Laxman Singh, VK Mathur, Sandeep Singh, Ashok Aggarwal, Sachin Kesharwani. Apart from these, work. Worked with SD Mishra, VK Sengar, Shakeel Ahmed, Nadeem Siddiqui, RN Shukla, Vindhya Vikram, Rakesh Pandey, Anoop Kumar, Bharti Sharma, Swati Singh, Tarakeshwar Chauhan, Dheeraj Singh, Ashutosh Verma, Pushpendra Verma, Anusha Dubey, Supriya Gupta. Bank leaders like Karunesh Shukla, Akash Sharma, VK Srivastava, Dheeraj Singh, Abhishek Srivastava, Gurpreet Singh, ON Tandon, Shiv Kumar Singh, Ashish Verma, M Z Hasan etc. participated in the protest.
Gave warning of protest until demands are not met
In the demonstration among hundreds of bank employees gathered after the strike, the bank leaders said that our struggle will continue until our demands are met. Bank employees will no longer tolerate the arbitrary actions of the Central Government. A demonstration and rally has been called at the State Bank main branch on 25th September and a three-day nationwide bank strike on 28th, 29th and 30th September.
what is the whole matter
Bank unions under UFBU had gone on a nationwide strike on September 11 with their demands. Other demands of the UFBU include updating and improving pensions, uniform dearness allowance formula for all pensioners and the option to switch to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) for employees covered under the National Pension System (NPS). Many public sector banks have started sending mobile SMS to their customers about using digital channels like mobile banking, ATM, internet banking, BC Point and UPI for banking needs.
This strike is happening at the time of closing
The timing of the proposed three-day strike also coincides with the half yearly closing of banks (September 30), which is a very important date for reconciliation of accounts, provisioning and treasury and market operations. Such a disruption, and the weekend immediately preceding it, would result in a virtual five-day closure of banking services at a crucial time in the financial calendar – causing significant disruption to customers, businesses, government transactions and international banking operations.
Government appealed to find solution through talks
The Finance Ministry had said on Monday that the strike disrupts banking services, causing inconvenience to the public. The government has assured that it is committed to the welfare of bank employees and resolving their genuine issues through dialogue.
Representatives of DFS and Finance Ministry said that the government is taking several initiatives for the welfare of bank employees and the issue of five-day work week is also under consideration. He said that before taking any decision he also has to consider the opinions of many other stakeholders. Therefore, he requested UFBU to postpone the strike and continue talks.