Bank strike tomorrow as employees push for wage revision; services may be hit

Normal banking operations like cheque clearance in public sector banks are likely to be hit tomorrow as employee unions have decided to go on one-day nation-wide strike to press for wage revision. "Since negotiations with Indian Banks' Association (IBA) failed, employees have no other option than going on strike," United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) Convener M V Murali told PTI. "We have scaled down our demand from 25 per cent to 23 per cent (wage hike), but IBA is not yielding. It has been sticking to its earlier offer of 11 per cent which is not enough," Ashwini Rana, General Secretary of National Organisation of Bank Workers, said.

Banks, including the country's largest one SBI, has already informed customers about the inconvenience they are likely to face tomorrow. "UFBU has given a notice to IBA calling for nationwide bank strike on the November 12 and All-India State Bank Officers' Federation and All-India State Bank of India Staff Federation being a part of UFBU will also participate in the said strike," SBI said in a statement. "Since the said call is given at all-India level covering all banks, the bank will not be impacted separately," the statement said.

The staff of public sector banks had gone on a nationwide strike for two days beginning February 10 after discussions with the IBA had failed. The wage revision of public sector bank employees has been due since November, 2012. The UFBU is an umbrella organisation of nine bank employee and officer unions.

There are 27 public sector banks in the country with a combined employee strength of about 8 lakh. There are about 50,000 branches of these banks across the country.