Strike hits Lord Krishna operations

The ongoing strike by over 1,200 employees of Lord Krishna Bank (LKB) has seriously hit the functioning of the bank's branches in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

To pacify the bank's customers, the United Forum of LKB Unions (UFLU) has decided to hold meetings with customers and political and trade union leaders in order to pressurise the government, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and managements of both the banks into calling off the merger.

The unions refused to heed the appeal by the managements of the two banks, which in a joint statement reiterated that there would be no job loss and also no closure of rural branches after the merger.

CBoP has already announced that as part of the scheme of amalgamation, there will be a one-time additional increment to all existing employees of LKB.

UFLU wants a 'complete withdrawal' of the merger proposal and merger of LKB with any of the public sector banks.

A spokesman of the forum said the managements of the banks had approached them "unofficially through mediators to settle the strike, but there would not be a compromise formula other than withdrawal of the amalgamation scheme."

The spokesman said the strike would go on for the next one month, which is the time that would be required for the two bank managements to complete the amalgamation formalities.