Thu. Mar 28th, 2024
BanksBanks may remain closed for 5 days due to holidays, strikes in December

One of the Bank Officers’ Union has called for a strike on December 21, 2018. It came ahead of another strike on December 26 called by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU).

The strike on December 21, is called for pressing the demand for an unconditional mandate for the XIth bipartite wage revision talks based on a charter of demands submitted in May 2017. According to Sajay Das, All India Bank Officers Confederation’s (AIBOC) Assistant General Secretary, “No headway has been made in the process so far even after 19 months since the discussion on wage revision began.”

According to Subhujyoti Chattopadahyay, the President of Union’s West Bengal unit, “The strike is also in wake of the burning issue of the proposed merger of three prominent Public Sector Banks- Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank and also the consolidation of Regional Rural Banks.

The recent move to restrict the salary settlements only up to Scale III was opposed by the union.

The authorities cited non-receipt of the ‘unconditional mandates’ from five banks as the reason.

The statement by the union said, “AIBOC believes that it is nothing but a farcical logic to restrict the wage negotiations up to the officers in scale III whereas the entire officer community is covered under unified Service Regulations.”

As a result of the strikes and holidays, the banks will remain closed from December 21(Fri) to December 26 (Wed) [excluding December 24 i.e. Monday].

Out of these days, December 23 and 23 are fourth Saturday and Sunday respectively. Also, December 25 is a national holiday for Christmas.

It is expected that over 3.2 lakh officers of the union will participate in the strike.

While on December 21 (Fri), ATM services are expected to be “normal”, on December 26 (Wed) ATM services will be affected.

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