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Our Bureau

Mumbai, April 6 The All India State Bank Officers’ Federation, to which nearly 60,000-odd officers owe their allegiance, has decided to defer its proposed two-day strike scheduled for April 8 and 9, after arriving at an ‘amicable solution’ to the issues involved in the strike notice.

If the two-day strike had not been put-off then the SBI’s customers would have suffered altogether for four days as April 7th (Mahavir Jayanti) and April 10th (Good Friday) are bank holidays.

The bank, in a statement, said that “the two-day proposed strike call given by the All India State Bank officers’ Federation for April 8 and 9 has been withdrawn by the federation after discussions held with the bank management.”

According to the federation, representatives of the bank’s management have assured that, at present, there is no proposal for merger of associate banks with SBI. Last year, SBI had acquired its own wholly-owned subsidiary, the State Bank of Saurashtra.

On recruitment of employees and officers, the federation said that following its understanding with the management a minimum component of staff and adequate infrastructure would be ensured while opening new branches and existing branches would be provided with another officer on achieving requisite threshold level of business, which would be finalised shortly.

“The voluntary retirement scheme and exit option scheme introduced in the bank have caused acute shortage of both clerical staff and officers. The business of the bank is growing by leaps and bounds while there is no corresponding recruitment of staff. Branches are opened without the minimum component of staff, leading to dilution of security aspects and risk to the bank,” the federation added.

AISBOF said improvement in superannuation benefits would be followed up with the Government at the highest level. Compassionate appointment will be modified suitably. Decision on improvements in service condition of associate bank officers will be taken shortly.

“In view of the change in the stand of the management and the keen interest exhibited by them to resolve the stalemate, our core committee decided to defer the proposed strike,” said Mr G.D. Nadaf, General Secretary, AISBOF.

Our New Delhi bureau reports: Meanwhile, talks between the SBI Associate Banks’ Officers Association and the SBI management failed on Monday.

About 20,000 officers of the associate banks are to strike work on April 11 and 13 as planned earlier.

“Our talks today have failed. The strike is on. Our proposed agitation stands even though the All India State Bank Officers’ Federation has deferred its strike,” Mr Harsha Vardhan Madabhushi, General Secretary of SBI Associate Banks’ Officers Association, told Business Line.

He said that the SBI management continued to adopt a “discriminatory” approach towards officers of the associate banks.

“We are being deliberately denied the benefits that had been promised to the officers of associate banks,” Mr Madabhushi said.

More Stories on : Trade & Labour Unions | Public Sector Banks | State Bank of India

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