A recent press report said that the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), comprising nine banking sector unions, has announced its decision to go ahead with the nationwide strike on as the conciliation talks held between the unions and Indian Banks Association (IBA) had failed to yield desired result.
Mr. Shyamal Karmakar, General Secretary, State Bank of India Staff Association (Bengal Circle) said that desired result was not yielded at the conciliation meeting in the office of the Chief Labour Commissioner.
He said that close to ten lakh state-run, private sector and foreign bank employees have planned to go on strike to protest privatization of nationalised banks, disinvestment by the government in public sector banks, mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing of routine activities.
Shutters would be down on ATMs — both onsite and offsite — as well, thereby bringing normal banking activities across the country to a complete halt.
There were close to one lakh unfilled vacancies in banks across the country and another four lakh vacancies were likely to arise within 2014 due to retirements. So there was a need to give greater thrust on recruitments.
The UFBU has also urged for the scrapping of Khandelwal Committee report which has recommended outsourcing of bank jobs and introduction of differential emoluments based on incentive system among others.