Employees of public sector banks deferred their proposed two-day strike, which was scheduled on December 1 and 2.
Pursuant
to our strike notice caused by the provocative decision of the
managements of SBI and Associate Banks to foist SBI service conditions
on the employees of Associate Banks, M K Choudhary, Deputy Chief Labour
Commissioner (CLC), Ministry of Labour, Government of India had called
for a conciliation meeting at his office in Shram Sakthi Bhavan in Delhi
on November 23.
From AIBEA, C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary of AIBEA and other leaders were present in the meeting.
Managements
were represented by the Executives of SBI and all Associate Banks along
with K S Chauhan, Senior Vice President, IBA.
While
presenting the issue before the deputy CLC, the unions have explained
that as per the instructions and orders of SBI management, all the
Associate Bank managements have pushed through the SBI’s Career
Progression Scheme in the Board meetings despite the opposition from
unions and dissent by our Workman Directors and the Scheme includes
additional duties and powers, increased working hours, enlarged
mobility, abolition of entire posts of permanent sweepers and
outsourcing them, etc. besides some extra allowances, according to union
release.
Unions
have pointed out that while SSBEA was always agreeable to resolve the
demands raised by them through bilateral negotiations, SBI management
was adamant by insisting on accepting CPS as a pre-condition to resolve
any issue.
"We
also explained how demands like enhancement in staff house building
loan, implementation of compassionate appointment scheme as per
IBA/Government guidelines, etc are being unjustly denied by the SBI
management and linked to the acceptance of CPS. We also submitted that
trade union rights of representation, collective bargaining and
bilateralism are being denied and negated by the managements and how
settled service conditions under Bipartite Settlement are being meddled
with overlooking the obligations under ID Act," said Venkatachalam.
In
response, representatives of SBI management tried to justify their
actions and maintained that SBI has every right to give any direction to
Associate Banks in view of Section 24 of the Subsidiaries Bank Act, he
added.
The
union contested their viewpoints and stated that the Settlement under
the ID Act cannot be trampled with or superseded by SBI or by any
decision of the Board of Associate Banks. They pointed out that issues
like duties and powers of staff, allowances, working hours, mobility,
etc. were discussed in the recent industry-level bipartite settlement
and resolved mutually, and Associate Banks being a party to it by giving
authorisiation and mandate to IBA, cannot violate the same.
In view of the postures taken by the managements, there appeared to be a stalemate.
However,
with the intervention of the deputy CLC, there were further
deliberations and SBI/AB managements offered to hold bipartite meeting
with SSBEA on December 3, 2015 and agreed to our proposal to keep the
offer letters served on the employees (wherever served) in abeyance and
not to issue any further offer letters to the employees in the Associate
Banks pending talks on December 3.
"In
view of this, it has been decided that our proposed strike action on
December 1 and 2, 2015 will be temporarily deferred," said Venkatachalam
Regards,
E.R.Iyer
