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The sub-committee set up by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to discuss the service conditions of a non-financial nature for workmen employees has completed the first round of discussions.
The discussion was held at the IBA office in Mumbai on Wednesday, said CH Venkatachalam, general secretary, All-India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA).
Two sub-committees
Earlier, the sub-committee to discuss service conditions of a non-financial nature of officer employees of banks too had held its a round of discussion.
BusinessLine had reported that the IBA had set up separate sub-committees to discuss the next round of wage revision with the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU).
This was decided at a meeting between the Negotiating Committee of the IBA led by RK Thakkar and the UFBU leaders.
It was agreed that the negotiating committee will discuss the common demands and issues of employees and officers having direct financial implications.
The sub-committees will take up other demands relating to service conditions which are of non-financial in nature.
‘Reasonable level’
In his opening remarks, Rakesh Sharma, Chairman of the sub-committee for workmen employees, said that the IBA would like to expedite the whole process of negotiations as early as possible.
He appealed to the unions to keep their demands at a reasonable level, looking at the present situation of banks’ performance.
A more or less similar demand had been made by Prashant Kumar, Chairman of the sub-committee for officer employees, while addressing the union representatives.
To Sharma’s appeal, the workmen unions responded by stating that they too would like to conclude the settlement expeditiously and would adopt a reasonable approach to resolve demands amicably.
Demand list
The demands taken up at the meeting included introduction of five-day banking; improvement and better management of medical insurance scheme; implementation of appointments on compassionate ground as per government guidelines; introduction of leave bank system; a staff welfare scheme allocation based on operating profits of banks; problems of physically challenged and women employees; intra-cadre career progression scheme; revision in income criteria for dependent; family definition; and improvement in compensation on transfer of employees.
According to Venkatachalam, meaningful discussions were held on these issues and it was decided to continue them with further inputs in order to reach a consensus on them.
Intra-team parleys
On its part, the IBA team too wanted to discuss among themselves some of these issues before the same could be taken forward.
It was decided that more issues could be taken up at the next round of discussions scheduled on August 23.
The sub-committee was chaired by Rakesh Sharma, MD & CEO, Canara Bank. Its members are HC Sati (General Manager, Allahabad Bank); Mrityunja Kumar Gupta (General Manager, Bank of India); Punit Jain (General Manager, Punjab National Bank); TS Seshadri, (Deputy General Manager, Indian Bank); Ajay Kumar Singh (Deputy General Manager, SBI); and IBA representatives VG Kannan, Chief Executive; B Raj Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive; SK Kakkar, Senior Adviser, Human Resources and Industrial Relations; and and KS Chauhan, Vice President.
The unions were represented by CH Venkatachalam and BS Rambabu (AIBEA); SK Bandlish and Vinil Saxena (NCBE); CJ Nandakumar (BEFI); Subhash S Sawant (INBEF); and Upendrakumar (NOBW).
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