Bank unions would go ahead with their all India strike on August 22 as talks with the Central government have failed. The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) had given the call for the strike on August 22 pressing for various demands including not to privatise public sector banks and merge some of them.
“In response to the strike notice, the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) called the UFBU for discussions on August 16 to explore the possibility of averting the strike. During the meeting, the IBA could not commit to resolve any of the demands; it just stated that all these are policy issues of the government but appealed to the unions to withdraw the strike,” UFBU said in a statement. A.K. Nayak, Chief Labour Commissioner of Ministry of Labour Ministry, Government of India, too had a meeting with both the IBA and the UFBU.
During this meeting, UFBU representatives urged the IBA and the Centre to make assurance not to pursue the reform policies and resolve the demands amicably. Since no such assurance was given, the UFBU said it has decided to go ahead with the strike call.
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Accordingly, as announced, nearly 10 lakh employees and officers of various banks all over the country would observe the strike, the UFBU said in the statement. “The strike is likely to affect banking services but we regret that the Centre and the IBA were not eager to resolve the issues; this has forced the unions to go ahead with the strike,” it added.