GENERAL SECRETARIES OF AIBEA AND AIBOA MEET FINANCE MINISTER TO DAY(19th Feb) AT NEW DELHI

[PM]

 

                                                                                                                                                                                             

Dear Friends,

                           Text of  All India Bank Employees Association cir.Ltr dated  19th Feb 2015 is furnished here under for information:

   19^THFebruary, 2015

         Camp: New Delhi                                                                                                                                                             

AIBEA-AIBOA’s meeting with Finance Minister today

 

                       In order to take up some of the important issues with the government, we had sought for an appointment with the Finance Minister, Government of India.  We are happy to inform our units that with the help of Com. D. Raja, Member of Parliament, CPI, we met Shri. Arun Jaitley, Hon. Finance Minister today in his office in Delhi.  From our side, Com. Rajen Nagar and Com. C.H. Venkatachalam, President and General Secretary of AIBEA and Com S.S. Shisodia and Com. S. Nagarajan, President and General Secretary of AIBOA were present in this meeting.  Com. D. Raja was also present along with us. 

 

For about 40 minutes, we explained our issues to him and Finance Minister gave a very patient hearing with positive observations on some of the issues raised by us.  We also submitted a joint memorandum to him covering the issues taken up during the discussions. 

We reproduce herein the copy of the Memorandum for the information of our units and members.

 

Yours comradely,

 

                                                  C.H. VENKATACHALAM                                                    S. NAGARAJAN

                                                  GENERAL SECRETARY                                              GENERAL SECRETARY

                                                            AIBEA                                                                       AIBOA

                                                    *******                                          ********                                       *******

Relevant portion of extracts from the letter submitted to Finance Minister  on 19th Feb'15, by AIBEA/AIBOA to Mr Arun Jaitely, is furnished here below for information:.

To

Shri. Arun Jaitley,                                                                                                                                                                  19th Feb '15.

Hon. Minister for FINANCE

Govt. of India

New Delhi

 

Dear Sir,

 

On behalf of All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), the leading trade union of bank employees in our country and its counterpart,  All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA),  we thank you for sparing your valuable time to meet us and we wish to submit the following few important issues for your personal attention and favourable consideration.

 

1. Wage Revision for Bank employees and officers :  As you are aware, the revision of wages and service conditions in the banking sector is due from November, 2012.  16 rounds of negotiations have taken place between the Indian Banks Association and the Unions in the last more than two years.  But unfortunately, the issue is still lingering without resolution thus frustrating the entire workforce in the banking industry.  Everyone is fully aware that the price rise and inflation has been on the higher side in the last few years and this has seriously eroded the real income of the wage-earners.  Additionally, the banking sector has expanded in the recent years with larger clientele to serve and varied Governmental schemes to be implemented. In the absence of adequate manpower at various levels, the existing staff are over-burdened with very heavy workload in the bank branches.  In this background, the entire workforce deserves and rightly expects a fair increase in their emoluments. 

 

But unfortunately, the Indian Banks’ Association has been pleading on behalf of the Banks, their limitation in taking any huge burden of wage revision cost as the net profits of the Banks have been under stress due to higher provisions on account of bulging bad loans. 

 

While we fully share their concern, we may submit that that the Operating Profits of the Public Sector Banks have gone up from Rs. 99,981 cr in March 2011 to Rs. 116,345 cr in March, 2012 and to Rs. 121,917 cr in March 2013 and further to Rs. 127,652 cr in March, 2014.

 

Since the provisions for bad loans and other contingencies have increased from Rs. 55,080 cr in 2012 to Rs. 66,831 cr in 2012 and to Rs. 71,334 cr in 2013 and further increased to Rs. 90,633 cr in March 2014, obviously the net profits have come down and stood at Rs. 44,901, Rs 49,514, Rs 50,583 and Rs 37,019 crores respectively.

 

But it is unfair to pass on the entire burden of the bad loans and the consequent provisions for the same on the shoulders of the employees.   Hence IBA should take a holistic view and come forward to resolve the demands amicably.

 

Wage revision has been taking place in various public sector undertakings and very reasonable wage revision has been given.  Employees in central government and many state governments also get better wages.  Inadequate wages in the banking sector is a major demotivation and hence the expectation of bank employees and officers for a fair increase in wages in very legitimate.

 

Govt. should intervene:  When the entire workforce in the banking industry is making every effort to implement the various programmes of the Government including the recent Jan Dhan Yojana, when employees and officers are working under lot of stress and maximum difficulty due to manpower shortage and increased volume of work, we regret that the issue remains unresolved and the workforce is constrained to express their grievances through various protest actions which are otherwise avoidable if the issue is attended to and resolved expeditiously.

 

We urge upon you to intervene in the matter and advice the IBA to adopt a reasonable and fair approach and we assure that we would not lag behind in reciprocating the same so that an amicable solution is worked out immediately. Wage revision settlement brooks no further delay.

 

2. Regulated Working Hours for Officers in the Banks :  It will be highly appreciated that except the senior officials and Executives of the Banks, other officers and supervisory staff in the Banks are normal employees of the Banks and it is a pity that there is no regulated or prescribed working hours for these officers.  Being staff members with higher responsibilities they may not be treated at par with the workmen employees in the clerical and subordinate cadre but by no stretch of imagination, they may be expected to work in the Banks without any prescribed or defined working hours in the normal course.  As and when it is needed and warranted, officer staff do rise to the occasion but this cannot be used as a ruse to avoid prescribing and providing some broad guidelines of defined working time for the officer staff also.  This is a very vital issue which concerns the entire officer staff in the banking sector and deserves a positive approach from the Government and Bank managements to find out a workable and amicable solution to the same. 

 

3. Improvements in pensionery benefits :  Pension and other superannuation benefits are a very important part of the service conditions of the employees and officers.   In the Banking sector, pension benefits have been akin to Government pension rules and have been introduced on such lines.  But while there is revision and updation of pension along with the wage revision of in-service employees in the Government, there is no such provision in the Bank Employees Pension Regulations.  Employees and officers who retired from 1986 onwards continue to draw the same pension which was fixed at the time of their retirement.  Similarly, the formula of Family Pension payable to the family of deceased employees also remains unaltered in the last three decades while the same has undergone improvements in the government rules and even in RBI.  Even the demand for extending 100% DA compensation on Pension for those who retired prior to 2002 is awaiting favourable consideration by the Government. 

 

The employees and officers who have retired from the Banks look upon the Government and the IBA to consider their demands with sympathy.  Hence we seek your kind and personal attention to the above genuine demands and cause suitable instructions and advice to the IBA.

                  ****                                         ****                                           ***                                               ****

 

C H Venkitachalam  - AIBEA                                                               S. Nagarajan -AIBOA

 

 

[PM]

Bank Unions Meet Finance Minister to day ahead of 25th Strike Call

Representatives from the public sector Bank Unions today met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to press their demand.

The meeting comes ahead of nationwide strike, called by the Unions, for four days starting February 25 and indefinite strike from March 16 across the country.

All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) and All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) officials have met Jaitley in New Delhi today and submitted a memorandum listing various demands, said C H Venkatachalam, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA).

"Today we only made a representation to the FINANCEMinister, it was not any negotiation meeting. Tomorrow Chief Labour Commissioner has called for negotiation meeting, where IBA will also be presented at New Delhi. Based on the outcome we will decide about the strike," said Venkatachalam, adding that as of now the scheduled strike is on.

The Unions have also demanded for employee director in Canara Bank, Union Bank of India and Corporation Bank, which is pending for sometime now and they sought FINANCE Minister's intervention to expedite appointment of employee director.

He added, during the meeting the Unions asked the government's intervention in early settlement of wage revision, timely appointment of workmen directors, merger of regional rural banks (RRBs) with their sponsor were some of the demands submitted today by the Unions to  Minister.

Venkatachalm said the 40 minutes meeting with the FINANCE Minister was cordial and he listened to Union. Unions have called for a nationwide four day strike from February 25 followed by an indefinite strike in March onwards demanding wage revision.

From their initial offer of five increase in the wage bill, IBA has so far improved their offer to 13%. This amounts to an increase of Rs 4,095 crore in the annual Wage Bill.

"From the unions, we feel that this offer is inadequate and not satisfactory looking to the higher rate of inflation in the recent years and the multi-fold increase in the workload consequent to increase in volume of business and extension of various types of banking services including implementation of many schemes of the government," said Venkatachalam.

...

[JSOMA SHEKARA]

Bank unions may settle for lower wage hikes, call off strike

Mumbai: Bank unions may call off a planned four-day nationwide strike starting 25 February and settle for lower wage hikes than earlier demanded, after finance minister Arun Jaitley asked union leaders to resolve differences with bank managements.

Union leaders will meet representatives of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), the apex bankers’ lobby, on Friday for conciliatory talks to resolve the pending wage issues in the presence of chief labour commissioner P.P. Mitra. The last round of negotiations between the unions and the IBA, held on 3 February, failed after the IBA offered a 13% hike compared to 12.5% offered earlier. But this was still much lower than the 19.5% demanded by the unions. Bank wages are revised every five years. The present round of wage hike is pending since November 2012.

The finance minister was aware of the pending wage hike issue, but preferred not to quantify the percentage increase in wages that should be agreed upon, according to All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) general secretary C.H. Venkatachalam. “He said your demands are genuine but banks have their own constraints. There should be a convergence of both demands soon, but in the interim you should keep the talks on,” said C.H. Venkatachalam, general secretary of AIBEA.

While the IBA started the negotiation process with a pay hike proposal of 5%, unions demanded 25%. Negotiations stalled in 2014 and employees stayed off work several times. In 2010, the last time wages were revised, both sides settled on a hike of 17.5%. The last hike, however, included pension and gratuity, while this time the hike is being calculated only on the pay slip component.

While the finance minister did not explicitly ask unions to call off the proposed four-day strike, Venkatachalam interprets it as a message to unions to not resort to strikes. “No finance minister of a country will want strikes. We told the finance minister that we also don’t want strikes, but we want to resolve the issue as soon as possible. We are aware about banks’ problems and we are ready to amicably settle the issue with IBA provided they show some flexibility,” Venkatachalam said.

At the meeting, the union leaders submitted a memorandum to the finance minister raising issues ranging from pending wage hikes to demands for other benefits like regulated working hours for bank officers and an improvement in pension benefits. “For about 40 minutes, we explained our issues to him and (the) finance minister gave a very patient hearing with positive observations on some of the issues raised by us,” according to a circular to members issued by AIBEA and the All India Bank Officers’ Association, the two largest bank unions of the country
 

 

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[s.srinivasa Rao]

Why not all workmen directors and officer directors nominated by unions resign as a protest to the indifferent attitude of IBA and linking all issues and demands to wage settlement that comes once in five years.

 

with best wishes

S.Srinivasa Rao (SS Rao)

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From: PM <moha...@gmail.com>
To: bankpe...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, 19 February 2015 10:46 PM
Subject: bankpensioner Re: GENERAL SECRETARIES OF AIBEA AND AIBOA MEET FINANCE MINISTER TO DAY(19th Feb) AT NEW DELHI

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[harinarayana sarma nandivada]

Thank you Sir, for the interesting development communicated by you.

N.Harinarayana Sarma

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From: PM <moha...@gmail.com>
To: bankpe...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Thursday, 19 February 2015, 22:16
Subject: bankpensioner GENERAL SECRETARIES OF AIBEA AND AIBOA MEET FINANCE MINISTER TO DAY(19th Feb) AT NEW DELHI

[Dr.dhananjaya Bhupathi]

Very very glad to note comprehensive but precise Memorandum submitted to FM Mr.Arun Jaitley. It speaks the excellent wisdom of Com.Venkatachalam and his team.

The rapport between AIBRF, UFBU and its affiliate retiree groups is very much a need of the hour.

All retirees/pensioners join me to pray Him in showering His choicest blessings up on the entire leadership cited. More so, Com.Venkatachalam.

regards,

Yours sincerely,

Dr.Dhananjaya Bhupathi.

Syndicate Pensioner.

PS.Why Mr.CN Prasad is conspicuously not writing to this forum? Sir, you are an embodyment of authenticity with every concern for the bankmen on par with all the karmayogis ofthis August forum. It does not mean that rest of visitors are unauthentic.