Ludhiana Unit of UFBU holds massive demonstration
Author(s): City Air NewsLudhiana, May 8, 2018: On the call given by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), bank Workmen and Officers are holding massive demonstrations opposing IBA’s meager offer of 2% hike and demanding Expedited & Adequate...
While addressing the bank employees, leaders of United Forum of Bank
Unions said that you are aware
that in view of the impending expiry of 10th Bipartite wage
settlement/officer wage revision as at the end of October, 2017, the Government
had been sending their directive to Banks as early as from 12-1-2016 advising
the Banks and Indian Banks Association to commence the wage negotiations and
conclude the same not later than November, 2017 when the revised settlement
will become due. There have been several
reminders from the Government to the IBA in this regard.
Leaders
said with the same intention to expedite the wage revision settlement, we had
submitted our charter of demands to the IBA as early as May, 2017 with a
request to negotiate and resolve the demands before November, 2017. IBA also assured they would endeavour to
complete the discussion and conclude the settlement before November, 2017. Even
though the discussions by IBA with the UFBU commenced in May, 2017 and even
though 15 rounds of negotiations have been held by IBA with the Unions so far,
IBA, one pretext or the other, had been avoiding to make any offer in regard to
increase in wages. Discussions have been held only on other service conditions
but IBA did not make any offer on wage revision.
They added
from November, 2017, IBA did not call for any meeting to discuss our demands.
In this frustrating background, we met the Hon Finance Minister on 21-11-2017. The
IBA re-commenced the discussions with UFBU and another round of talks were held
after a period of 6 months.
They said
while we were expecting a reasonable offer from the IBA to make a basis for
further negotiations, to our surprise and utter disappointment, IBA made an
offer of 2% hike in the Wage Bill as on 31-3-2017. In the last settlement from 2012 to 2017, it
was agreed at 15% hike in wage bill.
Since then the banks’ business have grown, workload on employees and
officers have increased beyond tolerable limit and hence it was expected that
wage revision will be better than last time.
To
substantiate their offer, IBA stated that the financial position of our Banks is
not conducive to offer better wage revision and that the Banks profits have
been eroded in the recent years. It is well-known that all the Banks have been
earning more Operating Profits year after year.
Rs in
Crores
|
2013-14 |
2014-15 |
2015-16 |
2016-17 |
Gross Operating Profit |
1,27,653 |
1,37,760 |
1,36,275 |
1,58,982 |
Provisions for bad loans, etc |
90,633 |
1,00,901 |
1,53,967 |
1,70,370 |
Net profit/Loss after provisions |
37,019 |
37,540 |
18,417 loss |
11,388 Loss |
The
net profits are getting reduced only due to huge provisions for bad loans and
not due to any reasons attributable to the employees and officers of the Banks.
Hence denying reasonable wage revision for the bank employees and officers on
this count is unfair.
Further,
leaders said at this hour, we feel that the wage revision demands of bank
employees should be settled expeditiously so that the entire workforce in the
Banks can concentrate their time and energy in addressing the multiple
challenges facing our Banks and to restore the confidence of the people on our
Banks. But the approach of the IBA in
attempting to victimise the bank employees and officers with merger wage
revision despite best contributions being extended by them in the present
trying situation will only result in serious industrial unrest in the Banks and
dislocation of banking services.
“Hence
we expect from IBA to adequately increase their offer and come forward to
resolve our demands without precipitation”, they concluded.