Major bank unions across the country have upped their opposition to the proposed Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill, first opting for a preliminary depositors' signature collection campaign with plans to go for a nationwide strike in case the Bill is tabled in the winter session of the Parliament.
Bank Employee Federation of India (BEFI), the third largest of the nine bank unions, will be holding a meeting on December 17 in Chennai to plan its future course of action post which an all-union meeting will be held to form a united forum to oppose the Bill.
"All the bank unions will be meeting to discuss the road ahead. In case the government pushes to pass the Bill in the winter session of the Parliament, we can go on strike", Pradip Biswas, general secretary of BEFI told Business Standard.
Although various bank trade unions are opposing the Bill, there is no united opposition till now and the proposed inter-union meeting is set to arrive at a joint opposition movement to the Bill.
"Soon a joint forum, comprising of all the unions will be formed to mount opposition", Sanjay Das, assistant general secretary — West Bengal at All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), told this newspaper.
All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), BEFI and AIBOC have embarked upon a depositor's signature collection campaign to stall the FRDI Bill.
Das claimed that already over two lakh depositors have signed the petition to stall the Bill, which has been sent to the Centre, and another one lakh people have signed an online petition. Additionally, over WhatsApp, petitions with links have been sent to the Prime Minister's Office, Reserve Bank of India and the union Finance Ministry.
The original copy of signatures collected by BEFI will be sent to Sumitra Mahajan, speaker in the Lok Sabha.
The signature campaign also asks the government to make public the names of the loan defaulters every six months, ensure accountability of bank executives for bad loans and amendment in the loan recovery procedure.
Additionally, unions are also demanding that the government declares wilful and deliberate defaulters as criminals.
It has instructed its state-level units to organise demonstrations and rallies to show its discontent with the Bill and garner public support. While such a demonstration is already underway on Friday in Kerala, a rally will be organised in Kolkata on December 21.
According to the unions, the FRDI Bill puts depositors at risk and they stand a chance to lose their money with the banks.
"The FRDI Bill supersedes all previous Acts and there is no need for this Bill when we already have proper regulators like the RBI and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority", Das told this business daily, adding that the FRDA Bill will also snatch away workers' and companies' rights to appeal to the Courts.
A circular issued by the unions states that the FRDI Bill proposes to empower the Resolution Corporation to use people's saving to the tune of more than Rs. 100 lakh crore to be used as a bail-in packages for corporate defaulters to the tune of Rs 11 lakh crore.
Bank employees are of the opinion that with the bail-in proposal in place, not only deposits can be endangered as the package finally may not work out, but the banks will also try to regain their financial health by using money parked by the depositors with them.
Recently, CPI-M politburo member Surjya Kanta Mishra, also the former leader of opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, said, "The government wants to come up with a law to use the depositors' money to improve the banks' financial health, but refuses to take any action against the guilty corporates".