Bank employees to go on strike in December: AIBEA

AHMEDABAD: Some 75,000 bank employees from Gujarat are set to join the nationwide protest by All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), which will be held in December this year. AIBEA is protesting the proposed wage revision of 6% offered to bank employees by the Indian Bank Association (IBA) along with, the proposed amalgamation of three public-sector banks – Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. The date of the strike however, has not been decided, yet.

Elaborating further, C H Venkatachalam, general secretary, AIBEA, said, “Mergers are not new to us. Some 47 bank mergers have taken place since 1969. However, we know the experience of these mergers and invariably, branches are closed down and employment gets affected.” He was in Ahmedabad on Thursday to attend the office-bearers’ meeting of All India Dena Bank Employees’ Coordination Committee.

Citing the recent example of the merger of associate banks with the State Bank of India, Venkatachalam said, “SBI has shut down 1,600 branches and some 5,000 more are on the verge of closure. As a result, people are losing jobs. SBI along with associate banks used to employ an estimated 60,000 new recruits every year for the past 10 years. This year, the bank is taking some 5,000 new recruits. This means, employment opportunity is coming down.”

Citing the same example, AIBEA representatives also said that bad loans have gone up after the SBI merger. “The total non-performing assets (NPA) of the SBI Group (including associate banks) stood at Rs 1.77 lakh crore as of March 2017, which rose to Rs 2.25 lakh crore in March 2018. The merger has not helped recover any loans,” said Venkatachalam.