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K.R. Srivats

New Delhi, Aug 5

A revised package offer by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) notwithstanding, the bank unions have decided to go ahead with their two-day strike from Thursday.

The unions have rejected the IBA’s ‘all or nothing’ package offer, stating that the revised offer did not meet their demands.

On Tuesday evening, the IBA Chairman, Mr M. V. Nair, approached the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) with a revised package offer. The offer came after both the bilateral and the conciliatory talks had failed earlier in the day. The wage revision of public sector bank officers and employees is due from November 2007.

Besides reversing the reduced offer of 13 per cent wage hike and agreeing to offer 17.5 per cent annual wage increase, the IBA also came up with a new proposal on the pension front in respect of the provident fund optees who want to switch to the existing pension scheme.

The IBA also stipulated that the New Pension System should be introduced for all new employees in the banking sector. “IBA has in its latest package offer said that the PF optees may be given an option to get the existing pension scheme provided unions agree that the additional cost of pension should be valued every year.

“The extra cost over and above 10 per cent should be shared by the employees at 33 per cent and management at 67 per cent,” Mr C. H. Venkatachalam, UFBU convenor, told Business Line.

The UFBU is of the view that the changed offer on pension option is an altogether new proposal and in deviation of whatever was discussed so far. This is not acceptable to the unions.

About three lakh persons (about 2.5 lakh existing employees and 50,000 retired personnel) are looking forward to make a switch to the existing pension scheme in the banking sector.

Banking industry observers point out that the earlier proposal involved one-time sharing of the resource gap, which was estimated at Rs 6,000 crore.

But, now, the IBA is keen on valuing the additional pension cost every year and then sharing the cost if it exceeded the management’s PF contribution of 10 per cent for those employees.

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