Banks to go on 2 day nation-wide strike from tomorrow

New Delhi, May 29 (KNN) The Bank Union has called for a nation-wide bank strike for two days commencing from May 30, 2018.

Following the decision of the United Forum of Bank Union (UFBU) which is an umbrella body of various bank unions, around 1 million bank employees will go on strike from tomorrow to protest government casual approach to wage revision for bank employees and a meager offer of 2% hike in a wage revision.

Banking operations, intra-government transactions, transaction clearances, and import bills, among other transactions will be impacted over the 48-hour period, said C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA).

This could trigger a country-wide cash crunch, he added.

The operations of various banks like ICCI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank and IndusInd Bank will not get affected by the strike as these 5 banks have no trade unions and hence won't participate in the two-day strike called by around nine bank unions, said Venkatachalam.

Foreign bank employees will also participate in the nation-wide strike as they are members of these unions, but not their bank officers.

Over this matter, the governed body expressed its inability to pay more to the employees saying banks had not earned enough profits. But the fact is year after year banks have been earning more operating profits, said Venkatachalam.

Expressing the concern over wages issue, AIBEA General Secretary said these profits are used for clearing bad loans instead of paying wages.

Taking the last 10 years bank operating  profit data from 2008-17 in account, Venkatachalam said the banks have earned a total operating profit of Rs 9.2 lakh crore out of which Rs 6.6 lakh crore have been wiped off for bad loans.

He further added that penalizing employees and officers with low wages on account of bad loans is not fair.