The Hindu Business Line : SBI staff to strike work on Feb 25, 26

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb. 18 The officers and staff of State Bank of India will observe a two-day strike on February 25 and 26 in support of various demands.

The strike call has been given jointly by All India State Bank of India Staff Federation and All India State Bank Officers’ Federation. The federations have also warned of an indefinite strike from the fourth week of March if the demands are not met by then.

Mr John Joseph, General Secretary, State Banks Staff Union (Kerala Circle), and Mr K. Rajeevan, General Secretary, SBI Officers Association (Kerala Circle), said here on Monday that the employees and officers had been forced to resort to strike following the management’s failure to stand by its assurance to revise the pension ceiling as also to highlight other issues like the merger of associate banks with SBI, stoppage of reckless outsourcing, adequate recruitment of staff and revival of the compassionate appointment scheme.

They said that the federations had observed an indefinite strike from April 3 to 9, 2006, in pursuance of their demand for improvements in superannuation benefits in the bank, which was pending for a long time.

The Government had then intervened and signed a memorandum of understanding with the federations for revision of pension ceiling.

The Government had also given an assurance that the other issues would be resolved through bilateral discussions and the management had been advised to put up a comprehensive proposal to the Government for consideration. But the Government and the management had failed to fulfil the commitment and a major portion of the issues in respect of the superannuation scheme were yet to be resolved.

The office-bearers pointed out that despite the opposition, the SBI management was proceeding with the merger of all associate banks with itself without any valid reasons. The merger, among other things, would lead to closure of bank branches and loss of job to employees and officers.

They said that outsourcing of routine banking operations was fraught with grave commercial risk and was against the basic principle of maintaining the secrecy of customers’ accounts.

The move was designed to deny permanent employment as also to de-unionise the workforce in the banking industry, they alleged.

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