THE United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), representing seven bank employees’ and officers’ unions, has announced a series of agitational programmes and nationwide bank strikes over the pending demand for a fiveday working week and other unresolved issues. According to the UFBU, strikes will be observed on September 11 and September 28-30, followed by an indefinite strike from October 26 if the demands remain unresolved. The unions said the key demand is implementation of a five-day working week by declaring all Saturdays holidays. They said an agreement signed between the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and the unions in March 2024 provided for declaring the remaining Saturdays as holidays, with bank working hours from Monday to Friday to be increased by 40 minutes. The proposal has been forwarded to the Finance Ministry for approval, but no decision has been taken so far, the UFBU said. The unions pointed out that the second and fourth Saturdays are already holidays for banks and claimed that five-day working is already followed by several Government institutions and other financial and corporate organisations. The UFBU maintained that the proposed change would not reduce customer service hours as the additional 40 minutes from Monday to Friday would compensate for the Saturday holiday.

 

It also cited workload and the need for better work-life balance among bank employees as reasons for the demand. Besides five-day working, the unions have sought resolution of several pending issues, including adequate recruitment of clerical and subordinate staff, restoration of the old pension scheme, exemption from income tax on additional bank contributions to NPS, raising the gratuity ceiling, updation of pension and uniform dearness allowance for pensioners. Other demands include revision of ex-gratia for pre-November 2022 pensioners, ex-gratia for employees of private banks, filling up of workmen and officer director posts in banks, introduction of a leave bank and banks bearing medical insurance premiums for retired employees. The UFBU said conciliation meetings were held on September 8 and 9 by the Chief Labour Commissioner and Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner, with Finance Ministry officials also participating. However, the unions claimed that the meetings failed to produce an understanding as the Government could not give any commitment on implementation of five-day banking.The UFBU said the strike had consequently become unavoidable and warned that bank branches would remain closed and banking services would be affected on strike days.