After walking out of the ninth bipartite agreement at its concluding session, both the employee unions of the State Bank of India (SBI) have demanded a wage hike of around 27.5% as against 17.5% accepted by the rest of the banking industry.
According to the memorandum of understanding signed between the Indian Banks? Association (IBA) and the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) in Mumbai last week, almost 3% of the employees? wages will go towards the contribution to pension pool liabilities, reducing the effective wage hike to 14.5%. This has, subsequently, provided the unions a reason to validate their demand. The union leaders have made a fresh demand for the hike so as to keep parity with the wage hike in the banking industry.
Confirming the developments, GD Nadaf, general secretary of All India State Bank Officers? Federation (AISBOF), told FE that both the federations, which include AISBOF and All India State Bank of India Staff Federation, met in New Delhi on Tuesday and passed a resolution towards this effect.
?Also, we have intimated SBI chairman in this regard,? added Nadaf, who is also the joint general secretary of All India Bank Officers? Confederation (AIBOC).
The general secretaries of both the federations are likely to meet SBI chairman OP Bhatt within a week to discuss the issue.
Earlier, minutes after signing of the MoU for ninth bipartite, the general secretaries of the two unions comprising UFBU, namely AIBOC and National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), had walked out of the treaty in protest against the removal of a particular clause.
However, IBA has put the onus of wage-hike related issue of SBI staff on the bank management.
IBA chairman MV Nair, who is also the chairman of the IBA?s wage negotiation panel, said, ?We have done our job after signing the wage hike agreement with UFBU and if there is any resentment among the union of the SBI, which are also part of UFBU, for wage negotiation talks, then they should settle it with their respective management.?
In fact, representatives of all the nine bank employees unions had signed the MoU and hence the deal is now being considered as a final one. ?We, at IBA, can?t discuss the issue which is between the bank employees and the management of a particular bank,? added Nair. However, he also said, ?They (NCBE and AIBOC) wanted to insert a new clause in the MoU at the eleventh hour which was not possible for us?.
On the preparedness of the banks to go for the wage hike, Nair said that all the banks have been keeping aside a substantial funds for quite sometime for this purpose and hence it will not be difficult to pay the arrears, which would be accrued since November 1, 2007.
