The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Diamond jubilee for bank staff association

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 29, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Diamond jubilee for bank staff association

Staff Reporter

Sampath, who pioneered unionism among bank staff, is felicitated

HONOURED: N. Sampath (right), president of TNBEF, being felicitated by Rajan Nagar, president of AIBEA in Chennai on Monday . — Photo: Shaju John

CHENNAI: On the occasion of the diamond jubilee of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), its members recalled the arduous struggle in the past to ensure job security for bank employees.

Until 1946, Indian banks could hire and fire workers at will. Job security was not assured and the pay was non-commensurate with the work employees put in. But their misery ended when a few bank employees decided to take on the unfair system.

N. Sampath, who joined the Bank of India for a salary of Rs. 10 in 1946, launched a Union movement to end subordination and denial of employees' rights in banks.

At a programme organised here on Monday by the Tamil Nadu Bank Employees' Federation, a unit of AIBEA, trade union leaders, bank officers, cooperative bank union members, bank deposit collectors, CPI MP M. Appathurai and MLA G. Palanichami honoured the octogenarian, Mr. Sampath and recalled his revolutionary efforts.

Speakers feared that technological developments threatened the Union system. The IT industries brought back the 12-hour work schedules and job insecurity, they noted, adding that outsourcing threatened the future of bank employees.

Mr. Sampath recalled that the movement was initially not encouraged, but the Madras Harbour Workers Union helped bank employees re-launch their agitation. Victor Louis Anthuvan, LIBA, E. Arunachalam, general secretary and C. H. Venkatachalam, vice president of Tamil Nadu Bank Employees' Federation, also spoke.

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