The bankers went on a one-day strike bringing a halt to banking operations as the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) failed to meet their expectations on wage hike.
Bank transactions went dead for an entire day in the district on Wednesday with around 3,000 employees working in public sector and old generation private banks participating in the strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU). About Rs. 20,000 crore worth transactions were expectedly hit due to the strike in the district, according to UFBU leaders.
The bank employees staged a dharna in front of Central Bank of India at Benz Circle here. Addressing the gathering, Vijayawada Bank Employees Coordination secretary K. Nagesh Kumar said that employees of old generation banks like Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Karur Vysya Bank also joined the strike. Close to 3,000 employees working in various banks actively took part in the strike, he said.
The wage revision for bank employees was due from 2012, and the UFBA submitted common charter of demands, separately for workmen and officers, to the IBA. The employees have scaled down their demand to 23 percent wage hike whereas the IBA offered only 11 per cent hike.
The UFBA, however, wanted a respectable settlement with due consideration of the difficulties that are faced by the employees on account of high rate of inflation, which has eroded the salaries of the employees to a great extent, the employees said.
