The sub-committee set up by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to discuss the service conditions of a non-financial nature for workmen employees has completed its first round of discussions.

The discussion was held at the IBA office in Mumbai on August 2, said CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All-India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA).

Earlier, the sub-committee to discuss service conditions of a non-financial nature of officer employees of banks too had held its round of discussion.

BusinessLine had reported that the IBA had set up separate sub-committees to discuss the next round of wage revision with the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU). This was decided at a meeting between the Negotiating Committee of the IBA led by RK Thakkar and the UFBU leaders.

It was agreed that the negotiating committee will discuss the common demands and issues of employees and officers having direct financial implications.

The sub-committees will take up other demands relating to service conditions which are of non-financial in nature.

Rakesh Sharma, chairman of the sub-committee for workmen employees, said that the IBA would like to expedite the whole process of negotiations as early as possible.

He appealed to the unions to keep their demands at a reasonable level, looking at the present situation of banks’ performance.

A more or less similar demand had been made by Prashant Kumar, chairman of the sub-committee for officer employees, while addressing the union representatives.

To Sharma’s appeal, the workmen unions responded by stating that they too would like to conclude the settlement expeditiously and would adopt a reasonable approach to resolve demands amicably.

The demands taken up at the meeting included: introduction of five-day banking; improvement and better management of medical insurance scheme; appointments on compassionate ground as per government guidelines; allocation to a staff welfare scheme based on operating profits of banks; intra-cadre career progression scheme; and improvement in compensation on transfer of employees.

According to Venkatachalam, meaningful discussions were held on these issues and it was decided to continue them with further inputs in order to reach a consensus on them.

On its part, the IBA team too wanted to discuss among themselves some of these issues before the same could be taken forward.

It was decided that more issues could be taken up at the next round of discussions scheduled on August 23.