Bank strike likely on Oct 5-6 over wage hike

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), a conglomerate of nine bank unions, has called for a nationwide strike on October five and six, if the Indian Banks Association (IBA) does not agree to a 12.5 per cent wage hike demanded by the union.

"We are ready to defer the strike if the IBA agrees to start negotiations for a 12.5 per cent hike," said Praful Patnaik, all India general secretary of the SBI Staff Association and also a member of the UFBU.

He also said the transfer clause would be acceptable if additional facilities like housing and a few other related perks were allowed to transferred employees.

The 48-hour strike was called to protest the IBA's "dilly dallying attitude" towards arriving at an amicable wage settlement with the UFBU, representing the country's 900,000 odd public sector bank employees. The strike call is also against IBA's 'negative approach' towards the transfer clause.

The offer comes before the scheduled conciliatory meeting on October 1, convened by chief labour commissioner of Mumbai. The talks between UFBU and IBA came to a standstill after the IBA offered a maximum hike of 9.5 per cent at the 8th bi-partite wage revision in the industry, which was due from November 2002. Incidentally, the next month's strike would be the second in three months and the third one this year on similar issues.

UFBU convener in Bengal circle Ashok Datta and All India State Bank of India Staff Federation (AISBISF) secretary Profullo Kumar Patnaik claimed that all private sector, foreign and regional rural banks would remain closed on both the days expressing solidarity with their causes.

Other demands include recruitment on compassionate ground, discontinuation of outsourcing of regular works.

Both Patnaik and Datta also came down heavily on the IBA for their alleged "delaying tactics" and said so far 20 rounds of bipartite talks with the UFBU "failed to yield any positive results".