Customers including the salaried class, women, businessmen, corporate bodies, and senior citizens were put to great hardship on Wednesday as employees of the scheduled banks and some private/foreign banks went on a day’s strike pressing for their wage revision, which was due for them from November 1, 2012.
The unions are also opposing the ongoing banking reforms.
Cheque clearances, commercial transactions, foreign exchange dealings and withdrawal/deposits of cash could not be carried out due to the stir. ATMs in some parts of the country went dry in the morning itself as people withdrew cash in panic. Long queues were seen in some of the ATM booths.
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The strike call was given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine unions of the bank employees’ and officers’. The Indian Banks Association (IBA), an association of managements of all the scheduled banks’, unsuccessfully held talks with the representatives of the UFBU on December 14 on wage revision. The employees’ unions did not accept the offer of IBA to increase the wages by five per cent.