Bank unions threaten nationwide strike on September 11; demands include 5-day working

The United Forum of Bank Unions UFBU has threatened to go on a nationwide strike on September 11 over the delay in implementing fiveday banking differences over the performancelinked incentive scheme and several pending demands including pensionrelated issues according to news agency PTIThe proposed strikesThe proposed strike would impact banking services especially in public sector banks for four days as September 11 is a Friday and September 14 is a holiday on account of Ganesh Chaturthi in many statesUFBU an umbrella body of nine bank employees and officers unions has also threatened a threeday subsequent nationwide strike beginning September 28 coinciding with the halfyearly closure It further stated that if their demands are unmet then it would lead to an indefinite strike from October 26 onwardsThe decision on the bank strike was taken at a meeting held on Sunday following what the unions described as the governments negative attitude towards their key demands the UFBU said in a statementOn fiveday banking the Indian Banks Association IBA had agreed to the proposal as part of the 12th Bipartite Settlement9th Joint Note signed on March 8 2024 under which working hours would be increased by 40 minutes from Monday to Friday as per PTIThe proposal was subsequently recommended to the government but has remained pending for more than two years the UFBU statedBank unions object to governments PLI schemeThe unions have also objected to the governments PLI scheme for bank officers in Scale IV and above saying it differs from the understanding reached with the IBA that performancelinked incentive would be linked to the overall performance of individual banks and would be uniform for employees and officers up to Scale VIIUnder the governments scheme officers in Scale IV and above could receive PLI of up to 365 days of basic pay based on individual performance while workmen employees and officers up to Scale III would receive a maximum of 15 days basic pay plus dearness allowance it saidThe issue of PLI is currently under conciliation before the Chief Labour Commissioner CLC following the strike call issued by the UFBU and is also pending before the Delhi High Court UFBU claimedThe UFBU further alleged that despite the pendency of conciliation proceedings and its offer to hold bilateral discussions with the IBA the Department of Financial Services DFS has advised banks to implement the governments performancelinked incentive schemeThe UFBU alleged crediting of performancelinked incentive under the DFS scheme has now actually commenced in the banks which is in violation of the status quo obligation during conciliation proceedingsThe UFBU argued that the present PLI scheme suggested by the DFS would disproportionately benefit a small section of officers and weaken the principle of uniformity in incentives across cadresThe other residual demands including updation and improvement of pension a uniform dearness allowance formula for all pensioners and an option for employees covered under the National Pension System NPS to switch to the old pension scheme OPS also remained unresolved as per PTIWith inputs from PTI