Union’s push for rights may help contract employees of vendors serving banks

There may be some good news ahead for nearly two lakh contract employees working for vendors providing various services to banks. The All India Bank Employees Association is planning to organise these workers into federations across the country in order to help them, among other things, win the right to ‘equal pay for equal work’.

The Association, which seeks to protect the interests of bank employees, represents about five lakh Class III (clerical staff) and Class IV (award staff) employees in the banking sector.

Vishwas Utagi, General Secretary, Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation (an AIBEA affiliate) said: “Earlier, we wanted banks to start recruiting and stop outsourcing of jobs. But now, the situation is such that though recruitment has started, outsourcing has not stopped.”

In the long run, the Association, by taking such employees under its wing, hopes to add these nearly two lakh employees as its members. Typically, these employees work with vendors to whom banks outsource non-core tasks such as cash transportation, ATM and branch security, courier services, house-keeping, and customer contact centres.

The AIBEA recently formed the first such grouping of contract staff, the Maharashtra Rajya Bank Contract Employees Federation, and plans to form similar federations across all states soon.

Pointing out that the employees of service providers are an exploited lot, Utagi said despite putting in long years of service they do not get minimum wages in accordance with law. They are also denied statutory benefits such as provident fund, and are not insured under the Employees’ State Insurance Scheme (a cover for medicare ) as employers do not contribute their share of the money to the scheme.

Public sector story Managements of public sector banks too are are increasingly pushing for outsourcing. In 2010, the committee on human resource issues in public sector banks had said that, consequent to extensive use of technology, PSBs will be required to change their business processes.

“They (PSBs) are also coming out with new business models for launching new business lines. All this will increasingly call for high focus on their core businesses and outsourcing of non-core activities,” it said.

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