Bank strike deferred as unions, IBA reach agreement
New Delhi: The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) late on Sunday said it has deferred its proposed three-day nationwide bank strike beginning Monday, after the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) agreed to form a high-level committee with the forum to consider its demand for a five-day banking week.
The development came after the UFBU’s late-night meeting with the IBA. “After detailed discussions, understandings have been reached and hence our agitations and strike actions are deferred. Details follow,” the UFBU said in the announcement.
The two sides reached an understanding on three broad issues, said UFBU key negotiator C.H. Venkatachalam. “On five-day banking, the IBA has agreed to form a high-level committee comprising representatives of the IBA and the united forum. The committee will work towards finding a solution to our demand for implementation of five-day banking and will discuss the matter with all the stakeholders,” said Venkatachalam, also general secretary of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA).
“Second, on performance-linked incentive (PLI), there will be discussions on the issue of the discriminatory PLI for officers, and modification of the scheme will be discussed with us. Third, the other pending issues will also be discussed with us,” he added.
The precise terms and modalities of the understanding reached between the two sides were yet to be formally disclosed. The development comes just hours before the proposed three-day strike was scheduled to begin.
The UFBU, an umbrella body of seven major bank employees’ and officers’ unions, had served a strike notice on 26 August and announced a phased programme of industrial action.
The unions’ principal demand is a five-day banking week. The IBA and bank unions had agreed in principle to the proposal under the 12th bipartite settlement/9th joint note signed on 8 March 2024. The proposal envisages declaring all Saturdays holidays, with working hours from Monday to Friday being increased by around 40 minutes to compensate for the additional holidays. The proposal was subsequently sent to the government for approval and has remained pending.
The unions recently stepped up their demand for the five-day week, along with concerns over the revised PLI framework for bank officers and several other service-related demands. The government subsequently kept the revised PLI framework in abeyance, addressing one of the major issues raised by the unions, but the UFBU continued to seek progress on five-day banking and other outstanding matters.
The UFBU had observed a one-day nationwide strike on 11 September and subsequently called a three-day strike from 28 to 30 September. It had also threatened an indefinite nationwide strike from 26 October if the issues remained unresolved.
Queries emailed to the finance ministry remained unanswered.
The finance ministry had also asked banks to make arrangements to ensure continuity of essential banking services, including adequate cash availability at ATMs and functioning of critical infrastructure such as currency chests, clearing operations, treasury and technology facilities.
