IBA-union standoff over wage pact could end soon -Hindu Business Line-22.01.2015
Kochi, January 21:
The nearly two-year-old stand-off between bank managements and bank employee unions over revision of wage agreement will, if all goes well, come to an end in a fortnight, sources indicate.
The deferment of the continuous four-day national strike, scheduled to begin on January 21, is considered a positive indication that the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) are heading for an agreement, sources say.
Informal assurance
The strike, which would have resulted in an effective shutdown of the banking industry for a week, was put on hold on an informal assurance from the IBA that it would marginally improve its last offer of 12.5 per cent increase in bank employees’ salaries.
Both sides have made compromises on many of the other demands, such as medical benefits. The wage increase rate is the only stumbling block before an agreement now.
Rajiv Rishi, Chairman of the IBA negotiating team, who is also the CMD of Central Bank of India, had told the UFBU that the next round of negotiations would be held in the first week of February. A union official told Business Line that they expected the talks to be held mostly on February 3.
IBA meeting
The IBA has called a meeting of its managing committee for January 31. The meeting, which will be attended by the CMDs of most banks, is expected to give the IBA the go-ahead for improving the offer of wage rise from the latest offer of 12.5 per cent.
However, the unions are not expecting a big jump in the offer.
The IBA, the bank managements, the Centre and bank employee unions are all not for continuing the wage negotiations that have been going on for more than a year and ahalf.
The unions, which met on Monday evening, however, decided that if the negotiations did not reach their logical end in the first week of February, they would go in for a long continuous national strike.
Bank Unions meet Jayant Sinha to press for early wage revision-Sentimes-22.01.15
New Delhi: A section of public sector bank employees unions today met Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha to press for early wage revision
A meeting comes two day after the unions deferred their four-day strike that was to begin today as Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) assured that wage issue will be resolved by the first week of February.
National Organisation of Bank Workers and National Organisation of Bank Officers, under the leadership of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), met Sinha and submitted the memorandum on the demands of the bank employees, said a statement by the unions.
In a representation to Sinha, it said honest negotiations which could break any stalemate. There was a rise of 17.5 per cent (Rs 4,816.00 crore) on total establishment expenses during the last 9th Bi-partite settlement.
“We request you to kindly intervene and advise IBA to keep above at least the level of last wage revision. If our demand of 19.5 per cent on pay slip component is considered, it may cost (Rs 6,143 crore). So far IBA has offered only Rs 3,937 crore and gap is Rs 2,206 crore,” it said.
Banking Service Recruitment Board (BSRB) should be reconstituted and all the recruitments in banks must be channelised through BSRB and state or region wise. Working of the IBPS is neither satisfactory nor transparent, it suggested.
Besides, minimum qulification for the post of clerk should be 12th pass instead of graduation. This will bring down the rate of exodus and after 5-6 years of service and banks can get trained and loyal officers, it recommended.
Delegation was represented by Pawan Kumar, Virender Kumar from BMS, Ashwani Rana and Manmohan Gupta from NOBW, S U Deshpandey and Bhale Rao from NOBO.
http://www.tkbsen.in/2015/01/bank-unions-meet-jayant-sinha-to-press-for-early-wage-revision/
NATIONAL ORGANISATION OF BANK WORKERS (REGD)
(An Industrial Federation of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh)
Central office: 542, Dr. Munje Marg, Congress Nagar, Nagpur – 440 012
Ph. 0712-2460808, Fax 0712-2420850 E-mail – nobwco.ngp@gmail.com
REF: NOBW/002/2015 DATED: 21.01.2015
To
Shri Jayant Sinha,
Hon’ble Minister of State for Finance,
Ministry of Finance,
Govt. of India,
North Block
NEW DELHI - 110 001
Respected Sir,
10TH BI-PARTITE SETTLEMENT FOR BANK EMPLOYEES
Wage revision of the bank employees has been due from 1st November 2012. Last wage revision settlement was signed on the 24th April, 2010. The wage negotions between United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) and Indian Banks' Association (IBA) have been going on for last 2 years. Dring the negotions, Unions have been flexible and scaled down their wage rise demand from 35% to 19.5%. On the other hand, IBA is claiming they too have shown flexibility in the matter. But the fact is that they started from negligible 5% which has been upped to 12.5% (Rs. 3937.00 crores) on pay slip components so far.
The Organisation believe in honest negotiations which could break any stalemate. We had a rise of 17.5% (Rs. 4816.00 crores) on total Establishment expenses during the last 9th Bi-partite settlement. We request you to kindly intervene and advise IBA to keep above at least the level of last wage revision. If our demand of 19.5% on pay slip component is considered, it would may cost (Rs. 6143.00 crores). So far IBA has offered only Rs, 3937.00 crores and gap is Rs. 2206.00 crores.
COMPASSIONATE APPOINTMENT IN BANKS
After a long struggle and agitation by the Organisation, the demand of Compassionate Appointment was considered by the present Govt w.e.f. 5th August, 2014. We are thankful to the Govt. for considering long pendiing demand. However, the cases prior to 5th August 2014 have been left out and could not be benefited. Therefore, we request you to kindly consider the cases of prior to 2014 also.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (IR) MEETINGS WITH AFFILIATED UNIONS OF NOBW & BMS
Unions affiliated to National Organisation of Bank Workers and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh working in different banks are facing industrial relations problems especially due to negation of Industrial Relations meetings. Notwithstanding that all these unions have been registered under Trade Unions Act, 1926, equal treatment in the parlance of law is not being extended to them by the respective bank managements. Consequently, unions have to approch Labour courts for getting justice in petty matters which has now became a cumbersome process. Surprisingly, even though our union is in majority at any particular State leval, IR meetings platform is not made available to them under the pretext of majority recognised concept. In fact, Recognition by Majority has no place in the provisions of existing labour laws.
Since Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh is the number one Central Trade Union of the Country, all our unions affiliated to BMS should get the benefit of IR meetings so that meaningful dialogues could be held with Bank Managements.
RECRUITMENT IN BANKS
1) Banking Service Recruitment Board (BSRB) should be reconstituted and all the recruitments in Banks must be channelised through BSRB and State/Region wise. Working of the IBPS is neither satisfactory nor transparent.
2) Minimum qulification for the post of Clerk should be 12th pass instead of Graduation.
This will broght down the rate of exodus and after 5-6 years of service, Banks can get trained and loyal officers.
Thanking you,
Yours Sincerly,
(ASHWANI RANA)
VICE PRESIDENT
Bank Unions meet Jayant Sinha to press for early wage revision -Economic Times 22.01.2015NEW DELHI: A section of public sector bank employees unions today met Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha to press for early wage revision.
A meeting comes two day after the unions deferred their four-day strike that was to begin today as Indian Banks' Association (IBA) assured that wage issue will be resolved by the first week of February.
National Organisation of Bank Workers and National Organisation of Bank Officers, under the leadership of Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), met Sinha and submitted the memorandum on the demands of the bank employees, said a statement by the unions.
In a representation to Sinha, it said honest negotiations which could break any stalemate. There was a rise of 17.5 per cent (Rs 4,816.00 crore) on total establishment expenses during the last 9th Bi-partite settlement.
"We request you to kindly intervene and advise IBA to keep above at least the level of last wage revision. If our demand of 19.5 per cent on pay slip component is considered, it may cost (Rs 6,143 crore). So far IBA has offered only Rs 3,937 crore and gap is Rs 2,206 crore," it said.
Banking Service Recruitment Board (BSRB) should be reconstituted and all the recruitments in banks must be channelised through BSRB and state or region wise. Working of the IBPS is neither satisfactory nor transparent, it suggested.
Besides, minimum qulification for the post of clerk should be 12th pass instead of graduation. This will bring down the rate of exodus and after 5-6 years of service and banks can get trained and loyal officers, it recommended.
Delegation was represented by Pawan Kumar, Virender Kumar from BMS, Ashwani Rana and Manmohan Gupta from NOBW, S U Deshpandey and Bhale Rao from NOBO.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/finance/banking/bank-unions-meet-jayant-sinha-to-press-for-early-wage-revision/articleshow/45968885.cms?from=mdr
Burger flippers in the US make about as much as state bank chiefs in India
Low wages at state-owned banks had prompted more than a million employees to threaten a four-day strike starting Monday
Running a state-owned bank in India pays little more than flipping burgers at McDonald's and Burger King outlets in Los Angeles International Airport, where the minimum cash wage is $11.03 an hour. In India, state-run bank chiefs make about $11.40.
They do get perks that American wage-earners don't: a car, a driver and free housing. Still, the heads of India's five biggest state-owned banks earn annual salaries and bonuses of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 25 lakh ($32,400 to $40,500), based on the latest data available. That works out on average to about 705 rupees an hour for what bank spokesmen say are 60-hour workweeks that include Saturdays. Their pay is less than five per cent of that at India's private banks, where chief executive officers also earn stock options.
"Significant and widening compensation differences with private-sector banks, leading to the erosion of specialist skills," is constraining the ability of government-controlled lenders to compete for market share and profits, according to a report last year by a panel appointed by the Reserve Bank of India. Market share by assets of state-run banks will fall 10 percentage points by 2025 from 73 per cent in 2013, it stated.
Low wages at state-owned banks had prompted more than a million employees to threaten a four-day strike starting tomorrow. Unions announced today they were deferring the strike after bank management promised to raise salaries an unspecified amount by February 15.
Indefinite strike
A teller at a state-run bank makes less than Rs 20,000 a month, or about $1.70 an hour for a 48-hour workweek. Top management, including managing directors and chief general managers, aren't members of the trade unions threatening to strike.
Unions are demanding a 19.5 per cent increase and have threatened to strike for the four-day period as of February 15 and indefinitely starting March 16 if the demand isn't met. The banks had offered 12.5 per cent, which was rejected. "Bank managements are not willing to give us a reasonable salary hike, saying that the banks cannot afford higher raises as profits are under pressure due to the rise in nonperforming assets," C H Venka-tachalam, general secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association, a union representing 500,000 mostly state-run bank employees, said in a phone interview from Chennai. "If there is no positive action on this front within that time frame, we will go ahead with the strikes."
'Same Weight'
R K Dubey, head of Canara Bank (CBK) until he retired in September, earned about 2 million rupees on an annual basis while running the country's fifth-largest lender, based in Bengaluru, formerly Bangalore, according to company disclosures.
Mumbai-based State Bank of India Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya's annual salary was roughly comparable during her first year heading India's largest bank. S S Mundra, who until July was chairman of India's second-largest lender, Bank of Baroda, was the highest-paid, at Rs 25 lakh. The positions at Canara and Bank of Baroda (BOB) remain vacant awaiting government appointees.
The current and former chairmen declined to comment on their salaries, according to the banks' spokesmen.
"They should be paid more and offered stock options like their peers in the private sector, as they are pulling the same weight," Aditya Narayan Mishra, president of staffing in India for human-resources firm Randstad Holding NV (RAND), said in a phone interview from Bengaluru.
Stock Options
At India's largest private lender, Mumbai-based ICICI Bank Ltd, CEO Chanda Kochhar was paid more than Rs 520 lakh in the 12 months through March 31, according to the lender's annual report. That works out to $263 per hour for a 60-hour week. While the amount includes a performance bonus, car and driver and other allowances, it excludes stock options of more than 290,000 shares for the year, the company's annual report shows. The stock rose 60 percent last year.
Kochhar's earnings were a little more than half of the $1.5 million salary paid to JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon for 2013. Dimon's total compensation for the year included restricted stock worth $18.5 million. Jiang Jianqing, chairman of
China's largest state-owned lender,Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd, earned less than two per cent of Dimon's total compensation while reporting twice the profit of the New York-based bank.
Declining profits
India's government holds a majority stake in 22 lenders including State Bank of India, which in turn has a majority stake in five other banks. Declining profits as a result of slower loan growth and rising bad debt are eroding their capital buffers. Stressed assets at government banks, including soured debt and restructured loans, rose to almost 13 per cent of total lending as of September 30, the highest level since 2001, central bank data show.
The ratio stood at 4.4 percent for privately owned banks. Annual loan growth at state-controlled lenders fell to 8 percent as of September, two percentage points less than the country's banking system, according to the data.
"The management shouldn't hold back on salary increases that are due because of the rise in nonperforming loans," said the union's Venkatachalam. "They are not responsible for this. It is the guilty, the defaulting corporates, who should be punished."
Unions have been seeking higher salaries since 2012, when the last agreement negotiated in 2007 expired.
Costly Drives
The government calls on state-run banks for costly financial-inclusion drives. The latest, announced in August, was aimed at providing bank accounts to 75 million Indian households without access to the formal financial system.
"As state-run banks have to support various government schemes and financial-inclusion efforts, productivity and profit per employee is lower than private-sector banks," Randstad's Mishra said.
State-owned banks "need to devise performance and merit-based differentiated compensation structures as well as promotion processes," said Monica Agrawal, Gurgaon-based executive-search consultant for financial services at the India unit of Korn Ferry International. (KFY)
Job openings at state-run banks still draw aspiring candidates. Last year, when State Bank of India had 1,897 vacancies for trainee officers, 1.9 million people applied. That amounts to 989 job-seekers for each opening.
Entry-level salaries at state-run banks are higher than those at private-sector lenders. Applicants are also drawn by job security. Government-controlled lenders, unlike those in the private sector, tend not to fire employees.
Minimum Wages
At the equivalent of $1.70 an hour, entry-level state-run bank employees earn about $4,200 a year. Workers at Los Angeles airport establishments earn a minimum cash wage of $11.03 an hour plus a mandatory $4.81 for health-care benefits, for a total of $15.84. The federal minimum wage is $7.25.
In China, the five largest state-controlled banks in 2013 paid their combined 1.7 million employees an average of 230,300 yuan ($27,200) in salaries, bonuses and benefits, according to data compiled from annual reports. China's only private lender paid one-third more on average, the data show.
By the time India's bank employees reach mid-management, the pay at private banks is more than twice that of public-sector salaries, Randstad's Mishra said. The difference continues to widen as rank grows, he said.
"After putting in so many years in the state-run banks' environment, most of them don't want to move out of the comfort zone and let go of the job surety, lifestyle or pension benefits," Mishra said. "Also, many of them would have lost the mindset and skills needed in the private sector."
Indian BANK Kumar-Submits on Facebook
Com.G.V. Manimaran,
senior VicePresident,AIBOC,
(Also G.S./Canara Bank Officers Association)
Has resigned from negotiating committee on wage revision,
to show ...his dissatisfaction ,over the way the strike was cancelled.
He has confirmed the news in his FB page.
*********
He writes.....
Dear friends,
I have seen many reactions from our members and well wishers about my decision of keeping my self away from the AIBOC NEGOTIATING TEAM.
Believe me friends, I have not done so to project me a martyr or a rebel, but, it is the time to ventilate my feelings.
Canara bank officers' Association members who are regularly reading my letters must be knowing that I am constantly and continuously preaching following points for the last three years…….
Fortunately the offices were recruited in big number from 2009 and I have been mentioning in various letters that it is primarily the responsibility of IBA and the Govt. to recruit and retain the INDIAN YOUTHS in the banking industry for which an attractive remuneration to be paid otherwise the industry will come to a grinding halt.
But despite our best efforts, it was not appearing that the IBA and GOVT understood that it was their responsibility basically to recruit competent officers and be retained by paying attractive remuneration.
Today about 40 to 60 % of the officers are recruited after 2009 in various banks, balance about 25% will be retiring in another 3 years and will be filled either by the officers recruited from now on or by promoting from out of the employees recruited after 2009.
However, in the Industry, in another three years, 75% of the officers will be in the age group below 35 years and they are going to hold the position of Scale I, II and III with less exposure in banking………...
With the outsourcing of maintenance and computerisation the number of sub staff and PTEs will be reduced in banks and thus the strength of officers will be equal to employees in the banking sector.
When the number of officers are increasing, the role and responsibility of the officers Organisation also have to be improved.
Thus it is the primary responsibility of IBA and a catalytic role of officers organisations to create conducive, comfortable, comparable and secured Woking condition for the work force in the future banks so as to attract the intellectual Indian youths to be recruited and retained in the industry.
Let us be transparent and gain the courage to tell the cadres on the settlement and we need not hesitate to share the information with the members rather than increasing hype which is the primitive style……
I always believe that agitations and strikes are to attract the attention of the Masters towards the issues and not to damage the industry and institution.
Similarly, my resignation from the AIBOC negotiating team is to draw the attention of the leaders to the issues and expecting cadres and not to become MARTYR or to weaken the movement.
Thanks for the support.
Manimaran G V