The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), comprising nine banking sector unions, announced on Tuesday its decision to go ahead with the nationwide strike on August 5, as the conciliation talks held between the unions and Indian Banks Association (IBA) on Monday failed to yield desired result.

“We had a conciliation meeting in the office of the Chief Labour Commissioner on Monday. However, it did not yield any result. There will be another round of meetings on Wednesday,” said Mr Shyamal Karmakar, General Secretary, State Bank of India Staff Association (Bengal Circle). Representatives of the UFBU as well as IBA were present at the meeting, he said.

Close to ten lakh state-run, private sector and foreign bank employees will go on strike to protest privatisation of nationalised banks, disinvestment by the government in public sector banks, mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing of routine activities.

Shutters would be down on ATMs — both onsite and offsite — as well, thereby bringing normal banking activities across the country to a complete halt.

There were close to one lakh unfilled vacancies in banks across the country and another four lakh vacancies were likely to arise within 2014 due to retirements. So there was a need to give greater thrust on recruitments.

The UFBU has also urged for the scrapping of Khandelwal Committee report which has recommended outsourcing of bank jobs and introduction of differential emoluments based on incentive system among others.

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