Ref: UFBU’s
Strike Notice dated 31-12-2013
Ref: Your
Communication 21(111)/2013 dt. 2-1-2014
We
thank you for your above communication in response to our Strike Notice and for
holding the conciliation meeting today.
In
this connection we wish to submit as under in continuation of the Statement of
the case mentioned in our Strike Notice.
Even
though the wage revision for bank employees and officers is due from November,
2012 and even though both the IBA and UFBU desired and agreed to conclude the
negotiations expeditiously, there has been undue delay on the part of the IBA
in making their offer in relation to the additional wage increase that they are
prepared to offer on the basis of the charter of demands submitted by the UFBU.
After
having waited for nearly an year, and since IBA’s offer was not forthcoming, we
gave the call for Strike on 18th December, 2013 and duly served the
Notice on them.
Discussions on 14-12-2013: In this background, the IBA called UFBU for
discussions on 14-12-2013. During the
discussions, the IBA stated that the profitability of the Banks are under stress
due to high provisions towards pension cost and higher provisions towards bad
loans and hence there were constraints in offering wage increase.
Inadequate offer: After much persuasion from our side, they
made an offer of 5% increase over the cost of total payslip components in the
wage bill as on 31-3-2012. Since offer
was considered by us as too low and did not form any basis for further
negotiations, we urged upon the IBA to improve their offer so as to continue
the negotiations further. Unfortunately
IBA did not improve their offer.