Bank strike ends, normal operations to resume from tomorrow

New Delhi, Feb 11: The two-day

by the employees of public sector banks, which had impacted the banking operations, ended today. Normal banking operations will resume tomorrow. Employees of the public sector banks had gone on two-day strike to press for a wage revision.

Services such as cheque clearances and withdrawing and depositing of money in PSU bank branches were affected. IN many places ATMs went dry resulting in hardship for retail customers. Private sector banks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank functioned normally because their staff were not on strike.

Reports from various regions said branches of public sector banks were not operational. Yesterday Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that it cannot be that all profits are used to declare dividend and to provide enhanced wages and allowances to bank employees.

Services such as cheque clearances and withdrawing were affected

"I will appeal to employees and officers of banks to recognise that banks profits, banks earnings have other claims. While claims of officers, staff and employees must be duly acknowledged, and a fair and just (wage) settlement is arrived at, there are other claimants to banks' profit," he had said.

Employees were compelled to take this route as the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) did not come up with an improved wage offer, United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) Convener M V Murali said.

The IBA represents bank managements. Expressing unhappiness over the yesterday's statement of the Finance Minister General Secretary of National Organisation of Bank Workers Ashwini Rana said "we are only asking for our justified wage revision not the entire profit."

PTI