Wage talks: Banks may not revise stand on fewer officer scales

Bank managements may not budge from their stand to revise a mandate given to Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) for limiting wage negotiations applicable for officers from Scale I to III.

The unions had requested for a revised mandate to enable them to negotiate on behalf of all scales (I to VII), a convention, they say, is based on the Pillai Committee recommendations.

But the managements are learnt to have stood their ground at a meeting of a sub-committee set up to discuss wage demands of officers of a non-financial nature and held in Mumbai on Thursday.

The sub-committee has representatives of bank managements as well as of officer unions.

The unions have urged the management representatives to take up the matter with the bank managements concerned since this could prove crucial to the success of the wage talks.

The unions expressed a collective wish to take the dialogue to its logical end but requested that the IBA not ‘precipitate matters’.

Other non-financial demands listed include: five-day week; regulated working hours; an accountability policy; improvement and uniformity in the discipline and appeal regulations; appointments on compassionate grounds; and branch categorisation. Family pension and 100 per cent DA neutralisation for pre-November 2002 pensioners too are on the list. The chairman of the sub-committee expressed resolve to address the outstanding issues, sources said.

But the chairman enjoined on the unions to keep in mind the state of the industry while pushing for their demands.

The meeting agreed to form a smaller committee to address problems encountered in the discipline and appeal regulation, which is pending from the last wage revision, and a uniform accountability policy.

With regard to categorisation of branches, the management representatives felt it be left to individual banks to decide.

The sub-committee is chaired by Prashant Kumar, Deputy Managing Director, State Bank of India, and included the following general managers of member banks: SK Chaoudhary (Bank of Baroda); B Ashok (Central Bank of India); K Virupaksha (Canara Bank); Ujwal Kumar (UCO Bank); MK Biswal (Bank of Maharashtra); and VG Kannan, CEO, IBA, along with human resources functionaries.

Those who represented the officer unions included: Dilip Saha and Y Sudarshan (AIBOC): S Nagarajan (AIBOA); KK Nair (INBOC); and Sunil Deshpande (NOBO).

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