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Bank unions call for day's strike on Thursday

Leading bank unions have called for a day's strike on Thursday to protest against the government's economic policies, especially those affecting bank employees.

The unions said banking activity all over the country, including clearing operations of the Reserve Bank of India, would come to a halt as more than 600,000 employees belonging to the All-India Bank Employees Association and the Bank Employees Federation of India would join the token strike.

In particular, the unions are opposed to the government's move to reduce its holding in nationalised banks and offering the stakes to the corporate sector, which owes the banks Rs 580 billion.

Ramanand, assistant secretary of the AIBEA, said in a statement that the government, instead of formulating a scheme to recover these funds from the corporate sector, was keen to hand over the banking sector itself to the companies.

Incidentally, it was the employees' union, which had released the list of big defaulters. The government has just been dragging its feet on the matter, Ramanand lamented.

He said a mere announcement by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, that he would stand by the banks in recovering the funds from the corporate defaulters, would not help. The very fact that the minister chose to ignore the problem while replying to discussions on the Budget in the Lok Sabha spoke volumes for the government's lack of will, he said.

Both the AIBEA and BEFI, he said, are totally opposed to political interference in the banking sector, including packing of political appointees who are non-professionals on the boards of nationalised banks. This practice has weakened century-old banks like Indian Bank, UCO Bank and United Bank and the employees are now blamed for these problems.

The unions are also pressing for the grant of bonus to all bank employees. As of now, hardly 2 per cent of the employees are eligible for bonus under an "artificial ceiling", Ramanand said, adding that the banking industry is the only part of the organised sector where employees are denied a bonus.

Sinha, by announcing sops for the information technology sector and other industries while rejecting the demand for withdrawal of the increase in prices of foodgrain sold through the public distribution system, has proved that the government is Sensex-oriented and does not care for the common man, he said.

UNI

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