Monday, February 23, 2015

AIBOC Message On Wage Settlement

ALL INDIA BANK OFFICERS’ CONFEDERATION
(Registered under the Trade Unions Act 1926, Registration No.:3427/Delhi)
           C/o Bank of India, Parliament Street Branch
        PTI Building, 4, Parliament Street, New Delhi: 110001
                      Phone:011-23730096 Tel/Fax 23719431
                           E-Mail: aiboc.sectt@gmail.com

Circular No. 2015/17                                                              Date: 23/02/2015

TO ALL AFFILIATES / STATE UNITS / MEMBERS                                                              

Dear Comrades,

HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS ! KUDOS TO OUR UNITY !!
LONG AWAITED SALARY REVISION FINALLY SETTLED !!

We convey our heartiest congratulations to all our members on this historic day for achieving a long awaited settlement for which we struggled unitedly and determinedly with all our valor. Ultimately after a period of two years and approximately 4 months and 18 rounds of talks, tenth Bipartite Settlement has been achieved ! This finally brought an end to long period of unnecessary anxiety thrusted upon the minds of each one of us Comrades, Kudos to unity and perseverance of our members ! Our members are aware of the relentless efforts and innovative ways adopted by our Organisation from time to time to achieve the long pending justified demands. We explored and did not hesitate to traverse all possible routes to reach final destination of wage settlement. In today’s talks also, our Organisation played a major role by taking firm stand on some of the finer points.

One of the issues apart from the Salary negotiation, very dear to our heart, particularly to the lady comrades and other young members has been that of 5 days week. It was only with a great endeavor of convincing the Authorities with lot of facts and figures that IBA partially conceded to our demand and agreed on second and fourth Saturday of the month to be a holiday while making the other Saturdays as full day working. Some of the salient features of the settlement are as under:

1.    The wage revision will be effective from 01.11.2012.
2.    The annual wage increase in salary and allowances @ 15% which works out to Rs. 4725 crores on salary slip components.
3.    The new scales will be constructed after merging dearness allowance corresponding 4440 points as on November 2011, which works out to 60.15% and adding a load factor of 2% on Basic pay plus Dearness Allowance as on 31st March 2012 amounting to around Rs. 597 crores.
4.    Distribution of annual wage increase between Workmen Unions and Officers’ Associations will be worked separately based on breakup of establishment expenses as on 31.03.2012.
5.    Every second and fourth Saturday of the month will be a holiday and other Saturdays will be full working days.
6.    All others issues of the Managements and Unions/Associations discussed during the process of negotiation will be settled to the mutual satisfaction.
7.    The parties will meet on mutually convenient dates to draw out a detailed Bipartite Settlement/Joint Note on the various issues on which consensus position have been reached. The parties will endeavour to finalise the Bipartite Settlement/Joint Note within a period of ninety days.

Comrades, though we may be happy, on one hand, on account of uncertainties on major issues coming to an end, but on the other hand, many eyebrows may be raised on the percentage increase agreed upon. We wish to advise that in the present scenario of deteriorating financial results of most of the Banks for the last quarter  and likelihood of it still getting worse for the ensuing one, further delay in concluding the talks would not have been favourable for us.  

We once again convey our congratulations and thanks to rank and file for the solidarity, patience and maturity reflected during the testing time and reposing their faith on the leadership. We wish to assure our members that we would take utmost care of the interest of our members in the matter of other issues also which are under discussions with IBA.

Long Live Our Unity ! Long Live !! Long Live !!!
                   With comradely greetings,                            

Comradely yours, 
                                                                                                    

                                                                                               (HARVINDER SINGH)                                                                                                                    GENERAL SECRETARY

Press Release of AIBOC dated 21.02.2015 (two days before actual wage settlement took place )

ALL INDIA BANK OFFICERS’ CONFEDERATION (Registered under the Trade Unions Act 1926, Registration No.:3427/Delhi)
C/o Bank of India, Parliament Street Branch
PTI Building, 4, Parliament Street, New Delhi:110001
Phone:011-23730096 Tel/Fax 23719431
E-Mail: aiboc.sectt@gmail.com

REF: AIBOC/2014/01 DATE: 05/02/2014

PRESS RELEASE – SALARY REVISION

The revision of salary of around 10 lac bank officers and employees is due from 1st November 2012 for which a comprehensive Charter of Demands was submitted by the Officers’ Organisations to Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) on 30th October 2012. In the last 15 months, 8 rounds of discussions have taken place between IBA and Officers’ Organisations and date of effect from 01.11.2012 and DA Merger points at 440 points were the only two issues settled.

Apart from this, IBA has made an initial offer of 5% salary increase on “pay slip component” which was enhanced to 9.5% after the Unions gave a strike notice and Central Labour Commissioner intervened to avert the strike. In the next round of discussion held on 27th of January 2014, IBA improved the offer by 0.50% i.e. from 9.5% to 10% which was considered as insultingly inadequate and less than what was offered in the last Bipartite Settlement and hence rejected by the Employees’ and Officers’ Organisations.

Historically, the bank officers were paid higher salary than the Government officers of comparable Grade due to various factors like Accountability, Transferability, Responsibility and Role-sensitivity. To have a parity with Government employees, Pillai Committee was constituted in 1979 and as per the Committee’s recommendations the pay scales of bank officers were rationalised and made at par with Government Officers. Such parity was distorted to the disadvantage of bank officers by implementing 4th, 5th and 6th Pay Commission Recommendations at much higher levels and the salary difference at initial stage of pay is alarmingly high. The bank officers’ gross pay slip amount at initial stage is about Rs.30700/- as against Rs.56400/- for Government officers. Similar differences exist at different stages in the hierarchy. It has caused serious impact on the quality of recruits in a highly sensitive sector like banking. 

Salary payment made by all sectors is so high and bank-men were forced to get less salary not only compared to his counter parts in Private Sectors but also others in the market and bank-men can no longer be called in Island of high-wages.

A study conducted by National Skill Development Corporation has suggested that banks would need to recruit 4.50 lakh employees in next couple of years which calls for making the job attractive and competitive in terms of monetary compensation. PSBs are doing a yeoman service not only for the growth of productive sector of the economy but also uplifting the neglected sectors of the society. PSBs have done a commendable job in enhancing the penetration level of bank branches in remote villages, Financial Inclusion, implementation of various schemes of the Government etc. 

In this background, it would be appropriate to note that the productivity of the bank employees has gone up from Rs.594 lacs as on 31.03.2008 to Rs.1151 lacs as on 31.03.2012. The business of PSBs in last 5 years has gone up from Rs.3322000 crores (2007) to Rs.8487000 crores (2012). Similarly the profit per employee has increased from Rs.3.70 lacs (2008) to Rs.6.40 lacs (2012). Though the business has gone up substantially but the staff strength is not commensurate with the business growth. The wages to total expenses also have come down from 14.66 % to 13.72 % in last 5 years.

These figures are indicative of increased work load and unduly extended working hours for the officers of PSBs. The growing materialism in the society has given rise to more frauds. The insufficient staff strength has weakened the preventive mechanism and monitoring systems in the banks ultimately lead to more vigilance/disciplinary and CBI cases against bank officers. The officers in PSBs are becoming risk-averse which affects the competitiveness at market place. The monetary compensation is considered an important motivator world-wide.

The Fifth Central Pay Commission while recommending substantially higher pay scales for Government officers had justified the same on the grounds that higher compensation will prevent the Government officers from getting attracted towards the allurements. The same justification must apply for PSB officers where the incidence of such allurements could be much higher. 


               The issue of affordability raised by IBA is farce and untenable as, despite after achieving social objectives(which are not expected to generate profits to the Banks) the Net Profit of PSBs is more than Rs.50000 crores, even after providing Rs.43102 crores towards bad loans (NPAs) whereas even an increase of establishment expenses by Rs.10,000 Crores works out to 17.76% of total establishment cost of the banks as compared to 17.50% given in last salary revision. It thus will have negligible impact on the balance sheets of banks. It is more alarming while seen in an environment where PSBs have written off Rs.95717 crores in last 6 years of which Rs.27013 crores were written off in the year ended 31.03.2013 alone. Thus huge sums are being doled out to fraudsters and dishonest corporates out of hard earned Operating Profits by write-off and deep-discounted One Time Settlements (OTS) to help the loan defaulters. 




               Last salary revision for PSB officers was at 17.5% of establishment cost which after factoring for superannuation costs and non-salary components of establishment cost left 11.43% for appropriation towards pay slip increase. Since establishment cost is almost double of salary cost, the average pay slip increase for the PSB officers was 21.52%. 

               In view of alarming increase in the inflation and cost of living coupled with substantial erosion of purchasing power, the PSB officers deserve to be adequately compensated by giving an increase more than last salary revision on pay slip cost.

It may be recalled that pay slip increase at General Manager level was around 29.76% during last salary revision. Such an increase will also help reduce the pay slip difference of PSB officers vis-a-vis the Government officers. The role of PSB officers in nation building needs to be acknowledged by the Government by restoring pay parity with Government officers. Since about 50% of the new recruits in PSBs are women, adequate compensation would also help in women empowerment.



(HARVINDER SINGH)
GENERAL SECRETARY
 

3 comments:

  1. dear ufbu Leader only you are happy... with this foolish agreement. you people started from 40% and reached at 15% only and iba started from 5% and reached 15%.. now you decide who is fool......

    ReplyDelete
  2. Historic Achievement or Historic Blunder

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks to Harbinder G for all of your personal efforts to neutralize the negativity produced by award unions so called leaders.
    Without your efforts this % was a nightmare for all.

    ReplyDelete