One-day strike hurts bank operations, forex

Mumbai, Oct 27 (UNI) Over nine lakh bank employees and officers today observed a one-day token strike which disrupted the banking operations right from clearing to forex transactions and money market.

The strike - by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) consisting of nine unions - was to protest government pressure for mergers and reforms, to oppose outsourcing and to call for more staff.

Further, UFBU maintained that there would be more strike actions if their calls were not heeded. ''When all the unions go on strike there is certainly an impact,'' K L Gopalakrishna, executive director at the state-run Corporation Bank said.

''Although some top executives have opened the branches, only limited work is being done.'' According to UFBU, today's strike was more widespread than the one in July as it included 200,000 staff at the country's largest lender, State Bank of India group.

However, many private sector banks such as ICICI Bank and foreign banks such as Standard Chartered were functioning normally as fewer of their staff are union members.

The Indian Banks' Association (IBA) maintained that banks were not expecting the strike to cause them much financial loss.

A sizeable number of bank employees had gathered on the Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, a public sports ground, carrying signs calling for a stop to contract labour and for 100,000 banking vacancies to be filled. The unions also opposed proposals to cut government stakes in state-run banks to 33 percent from a current minimum of 51 percent.

The striking workmen and officers demanded one more option of index linked pensions in lieu of Provident Fund (PF). The corpus required for extending such an option as estimated by IBA would be around Rs 12,000 crore and the Government is maintaining a stoic silence on the issue leading to present unrest, said UBFU in a press release issued here this evening.

UNI SN MJ SKB1919