Bank employees had struck work on January 25 in support of their various demands.

However, with no headway in breaking the impasse, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of all the nine unions representing bank employees and officers, has once again given the strike call.
The impact of the latest bank strike is likely to be more crippling as employees of not only PSU banks, but those of old generation private sector banks have decided to support the strike call.

Their demands include scrapping of the policy of mergers of public sector banks, option to join pension scheme, restoration of compassionate appointments in banks, filling of vacancies by recruitment, stopping outsourcing of normal banking jobs and early settlement of wage revision.

ATM transactions
While there will be total shutdown of all the public sector banks as officers and employees will take part in the strike, customers can still draw cash from ATMs - well, only till the cash stock lasts.

“There will be no refilling of ATMs during the strike period. Only ATMs of a few banks which have outsourced the same will be refilled on Monday and Tuesday”, said S R Pawar, Secretary, State Bank of Mysore Employees Union.
However, he feels that customers will not be put to inconvenience as ATM cash stock usually lasts for three days. “We do want to put the customers to hardship. We are only against the policy of the Union Finance Minister”, Karnataka Pradesh Bank Employees Federation General Secretary H Vasanth Rai said.

In Karnataka, more than 50,000 employees of 27 public sector banks - Canara Bank, Corporation Bank, State Bank of India, State Bank of Mysore to name a few - and some private sector banks will go on strike. 

Work will be affected in old generation private banks like ING Vysya, Karnataka Bank, Federal Bank, South Indian Bank as most of the employees in these banks are affiliated to UFBU.

However, new generation private sector banks like ICICI, Axis Bank and HDFC will not take part in the strike, Mr Rai said.

He said if no steps were taken to meet their demands, employees would be forced to resort to indefinite strike from March 24.

No to strike
Meanwhile, All India Bank Sub-Employees Union, a group comprising group D employees have decided not to support the strike call.

Union General Secretary A Raju said that the interest of group D employees in banks had been sidelined throughout. “It has become the habit for unions to call for frequent bank strikes jeopardising the interest of working class as well as financial institutions. We will not support the strike,” Mr Raju said.