The fourth round of the Officers Wage Revision talks with the representatives of the Indian Banks Association [IBA] was held at Mumbai on 12thAugust 2013. In fact the discussions were held in two sessions, separated only by lunch in between at 1 pm.The IBA team was headed by Chairman of the Negotiating Team of IBA, Sri T M Bhasin along with Sri H Upendra Kamath CMD Vijaya Bank; Sri R K Dubey CMD Canara Bank; Sri Balakrishna Chaubal DMD SBI; Sri Rajiv Rishi, CMD CBI; Sri R K Sethi ED PNB; Sri A K Dutt, ED of Dena Bank; Dr Ramakrishnan CEO IBA and Sri K Unnikrishnan Dy. CEO IBA besides other members of the back up team of the IBA.
The representatives of the 4 Officers’ organizations and 7 workmen Unions participated in the discussions. Representing the Unions, Com M V Murali, Convenor of UFBU informed IBA of the change in composition of the UFBU as Com K K Nair General Secretary INBOC has been elected as the Chairman of the UFBU. The meeting recorded the deepest condolence in memory of Com R J Sridharan, Chairman AIBOA, and who was a member of the negotiating team on behalf of AIBOA till the 6th Joint note exercise with IBA,who breathed his last on the 15th June 2013 at Chennai.
While initiating the dialogue, the Chairman of the Negotiating team informed the efforts taken by IBA in setting the negotiation in motion by taking up the matter with the Government of India. In his presentation he was making an appeal that the discussions held should be kept as sacrosanct and till the finalization of the issues , approaching the print media by unions should be avoided.
Compassionate Ground appointments: This issue is pending for resolution from March 2006. In the conciliation meeting held at Delhi in the third week of January 2008, it was assured to address and resolve the issue by taking up with Government of India. This matter was vigorously taken up on 23rd May 2013 in the meeting held with Sri KR Kamath Chairman IBA at PNB Headquarters Delhi, along with host of other issues. Once again,on 6thAugust 2013, when the 9 unions representatives met the Hon’ble Finance Minister it was reiterated for an early resolution of this issue. In this background, Sri T M Bhasin, Chairman Negotiating committee, IBA, informed that the Government guidelines on compassionate ground appointments coupled with monetary compensation slab wise has been recommended to the Government for their approval.
Hospitalisation Scheme : Upon the request made by IBA, for a presentation by the experts on Health Insurance for the benefit of the Unions, a hour long power point presentation was made by the team. It was agreed to have the response from the Unions, in the matter of entertaining the proposals suggested by one of the leading Public Sector Insurance Companies who had already discussed the matter with one of the leading public sector banks in India. The matter is at the nascent state .
UFBU Convenor Com M V Murali insisted for the response of IBA, on the 3 issues pending with IBA. i.e Date of effect, Merger Points and the load factor . While iBA, responded positively, in the matter of date of effect of the current settlement from 1 11 2012, insisted for our response, on cost to company proposal of the IBA. An effective and convincing arguments were presented from the unions side. The discussion stood adjourned for lunch.
On resumption, IBA did present the huge pension liability on account of AS 15 application and proposed to stick to DA Merger at August 2009 level in the initial stage. There was a hard bargaining from the Unions side and ultimately it was agreed to follow the earlier pattern of merger of DA. i.e. one year prior to the wage revision i.e. November, 2011 - 4440 points which would mean merger of DA @60.15% to facilitate construction of payscales.
The discussions on the Management issues were inconclusive. However, the representatives of the four Officers organizations presented a collective expression that the negotiation should not be restricted up to Scale III and emphasized the same as was done earlier in the 3rd round i.e on 7th June 2013. It was also further insisted that the total break up of stage wise and scale wise distribution of the Officers establishment expenses data for all the scale i.e. Scale I to Scale VII should be provided by IBA to the Officers organizations to enable them to commence the calculation work.
Comrades, with the clinching of two significant and important issues that constitute the base of the wage revision exercise, in this round of discussions, there is certainly a ray of hope that the matter would move forward. Further developments in this regard, as and when it emerges, will be informed in due course to all our units/members.
With Greetings,
Yours comradely
/S NAGARAJAN/
GENERAL SECRETARY
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