Banking services paralysed

Banking services across the country were affected as nearly 10 lakh bank employees and officers owing allegiance to nine trade unions did not report to work, protesting against the UPA Government's ‘reforms' policies in the banking sector.

Employees and officers mainly from public sector banks, regional rural banks and old generation private sector banks participated in the strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), the umbrella union of the nine trade unions.

In Mumbai, the commercial capital of the country, though some branches manned by senior executives (Chief Managers and above) were open, they could not transact any business as support staff were not present. However, it was business as usual at the private sector and foreign banks.

As branches and individual banks' local clearing centres were not working, the daily average cheque clearing volume of Rs 4,500 crore in the city was severely impacted.

There was relatively thin trading in the money markets. In sharp contrast, the government securities market saw robust trading of Rs 18,245 crore, against Rs 12,000 crore on Thursday.

According to market players, institutions, foreign as well as domestic, could have temporarily invested in government securities after exiting from the equities market, which is reeling under the impact of slowing domestic economic growth, dismal manufacturing data from the US and Europe, and the ongoing contagion in Italian and Spanish bond markets.

Key issues

The unions, among others, are protesting against attempts of the Government to keep merger of banks outside the purview of the Competition Act; to allow unrestricted voting rights to shareholders in private banks by removing the present 10 per cent ceiling; and to increase voting rights from 1 per cent to 10 per cent in public sector banks.

They are also opposed to the attempts to outsource the regular and normal banking jobs instead of recruiting permanent employees through Banking Service Recruitment Board.

“Today's strike is only a protest signal. If steps are not taken by the IBA/Government to resolve our demands, the agitation will be intensified and more strike actions will be decided,” said Mr C. H. Venkatachalam, Convener, UFBU

Our Kolkata Bureau reports : Banking operations in West Bengal came to a standstill on Friday with close to 80,000 employees across about 5,000 bank branches in the State joining the nationwide strike called by UFBU.

“All commercial banks, including state-owned, new private sector, old private sector banks and foreign banks apart from co-operative banks and regional rural banks, were a part of the strike today. Shutters were down across majority of the onsite and offsite ATMs across the state,” said Mr Ashok Mukherjee, General Secretary, State Bank of India Staff Association.

Our Chennai Bureau adds : Mr C. H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), said the overwhelming response to the strike showed the “growing anguish” of the employees over the Banking Law Amendment Bill proposed by the Government. “We registered our protest and hope the Government will understand the reasonable issues raised by the unions,” he said.

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