Nation wide bank strike on Feb 25, 26

Vijayawada, Feb 15 (UNI) Protesting against the delay in settling their long pending demands by the Centre and the Indian Banks Association (IBA), all the nine bank unions under the aegis of United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBA), comprising 10 lakh bank employees and officers, will go on a two-day country-wide strike from February 25.

Announcing this at a press conference here today, UFBA Convenor C H Venkatachalam said despite the banking operations in 55,000 bank branches being virtually paralysed during the one-day nation-wide strike on January 25 last, the Centre and IBA were not in a ''mood'' to resolve the issues.

Mr Venkatachalam said the two-day strike would be followed by an indefinite strike from the last week of next month, the dates for which would be announced later.

Mr Venkatachalam said the Government instead of merging SBI with its seven associate banks should open more branches in the rural areas to improve the customer service.

Mr Venkatachalam, who is also the General Secretary of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) alleged that the bank managements wanted to outsource all the bank's services to provide temporary and casual jobs and reduce the recruitment of the permanent jobs.

He further said the outsourcing in the banks would also jeopardise the banking industry as the employees would become surplus and their jobs would be at risk.

Mr Venkatachalam alleged that the unions asked the managements to appoint the children of deceased employees by virtue of their age and qualification in the respective posts, but the Government and IBA did not agree.

The UFBU also demanded early settlement of wage revision as per the charter of demands given by the unions. But the IBA had not commenced preliminary discussions with the unions so far, he added.

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