AIBOC Writes Govrnment To Protect Banks And Bank Staff

It is known to all bankers that Ministry of Finance has written a letter to Chiefs of all public sector banks to initiate process of wage revision which in due in the month of November 2017. Many of bank staff used to blame current leadership during the course of dialogue for last Xth bipartite settlement. They all should now submit their valued suggestion for forthcoming Bipartite Settlement to current leadership UFBU or their own trade union or they themselves should come forward to lead the trade union of bank staff and do what in their opinion would be best.

But once the process is initiated, it will be foolish and ineffective to use abusive or derogative words for leadership (on facebook or other social sites) who take part in dialogue for wage revision. It is advisable that all talented bank staff sit together daily to finalise Charter of Demand and submit the same in a month to Chiefs of their bank or IBA whichever is assigned the task of finalisation XIth Bipartite Settlement.

Whoever want to submit his or her suggestion for getting best pay structure and other benefits may submit to their leadership or submit on Facebook or to me for sharing the same with others and getting as far as unanimous point of view on any point. UFBU may call a meting of all talented bank staff at one place to discuss all issues related to Bipartite Settlement and finalise a draft paper to be submitted to IBA for initiation of dialogue and process of finalisation of mutually agreeable accord.

Some Bank staff want to bring bank in the jurisdiction of Central Pay Commission, some of them want to continue to stick to existing system of Bipartite Settlement and some of them compare bank scale with that of LIC or other private companies.They all have to collect the position of bank staff which used to be four decades ago and that of subsequent Bipartite Settlement and prove to Central Government that wage structure in Bank has faced continuous erosion.

I should make it clear that Chiefs of Public Sector Bank who are part of negotiating bodies like Indian Bank Association will perhaps think more in favour of Ministers because they are more concerned about their career than future of bank staff or future of bank they serve.

Ministry of Finance and Central Government use to put blame on bank management that due to improper management of manpower , volume of bad assets in bank is continuously increasing .They trust on advices given to them by Chiefs of banks on all issues related to wage revision. They trust them blindly even if false and fraudulently figures are submitted by clever Chiefs of banks.

But leaders have to prove that role of politicians and Government is equally responsible for reckless and unabated rise in stressed assets in public bank compared to that in private banks . Trade union leaders have to convince government that bank staff are not responsible for rise in bad debts and fall in profit of public banks.

Now when health of public banks has become highly critical due to some reason or the other , one of trade unions called AIBOC has written to Ministry of Finance to prove that bank staff are not responsible for current mess in these bank. Prior to that AIBEA has also written several times to RBI and MOF to take care of rising trend in bad debts in public banks.

Joint General Secretary of the AIBOC (Apex), and Rajiv Sirhindi, Secretary of Punjab Unit of the AIBOC, said major trade unions of the country had sent a letter to Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, putting the facts straight and seeking the direct intervention and action by the regulator. If the RBI all of a sudden wants to set right everything overnight, it would be certainly at a great risk of destabilising the banking system in general and PSBs in particular.

But in my view writing letters is not going to serve the purpose they want to serve. They have to furnish facts and figures before appropriate authorities to make their position crystal clear. AIBOC try to appear as concerned for growing bad debts and trying to shed Crocodile Tears.

AIBOC has expressed in their letter addressed to MOF that majority of public sector and few private sector banks would be in red on account of asset quality review by the bank. It proves that leaders of trade union also know it very well that game of hiding stressed assets in banks is not uncommon.

Every officers who heads a branch or a Region or a Zone or a bank is habituated and trained to show bad assets as Standard and if any officer do not obey verbal orders coming from higher offices , he or she is taken to task , either by transfer to critical place or by rejection in promotion or by giving him useless work. This culture is well established and deep rooted. Window dressing is inseparable part of bank management .

Fact is that Trade Union Leaders in general ( barring some exceptional devoted leaders ) too are playing the same game as top officials of bank management are playing with the future of bank staff. And both of them want to serve mostly their self interest than the interest of their members or bank staff . Both of them want to pass the days happily sacrificing the interest of staff as well as that of the organisation they belong to. Some of them have retired , still they continue to lead trade unions . This is because young boys and girls or working senior bank staff do not come forward to take the lead.

I do not hesitate in saying that so far as corruption in bank is concerned or that of accumulation of bad debts in concerned , bank management and trade unions are more or less two sides of same coin. Had trade unions been honest and straight forward and had they been real protector of bank staff and bank , these banks could have remained in better position.

As such it will be wrong to remain silent spectator of what trade union leaders propose in Charter of Demand and then abuse them if the settlement goes against the expectation. It is the time that all staff members come together and stand as united like rock and prove that they are as militant for common cause as they used to be in seventies and eighties .On the contrary, if staff continue to remain divided in small blocks and in small groups and continue to voice their own sound in their own tune which not appear to be in same tune , it will crate more noise than a musical and harmonic sound which provides guarantee to best settlement.

Unity is strength and it is necessary that bank staff maintain unity at least on social sites and at the same time remain in close touch with their top leaders which will help them in making a best draft for Charter of Demand. We have seen how LIC trade Union got better wage revision in few months without resorting to any strike whereas our militant leaders in bank failed to achieve satisfactory hike in wages in Xth Bipartite Settlement despite prolonged dialogue and many strikes.

Following is the copy of letter AIBOC has written to Ministry of Finance either to protect bank or to protect guilty officers or to save their own image when RBI is going to expose the evil culture prevalent in public bank for which both management and trade union leaders are responsible. God knows what is true and what is not. But bank is passing through bad days, and it is duty of all bank staff to protect it and to make our image shining once again.

Pathetic health of bank can be guessed , experienced and seen by any bank staff  only by the fact that even banks which were considered strong banks only a decade ago are not facing the acute crisis in quality of assets . They may imagine of weak banks.

Now even SBI Chairman has told that if RBI insist for treating 150 identified accounts as NPA, many banks will come in red. If RBI asks for each branch to give guarantee that all bad accounts are treated as bad strictly as per RBI norms and asked to certify that they have not concealed any bad account , each PSU bank will be in red and GOI will fail to capitalise them . And then GOI will make excuses in giving respectable wage hike in XIth Bipartite Settlement as they did in last bipartite settlement.

http://aiboc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/aibocltr-2016-04.pdf

Mr. Pannvalan Writes as follows
The communication from GOI to individual banks to start 11th BPS was prompted by the LIC wage revision that was notified by the government on 14-06-2016. At the lowest end (AAO in LIC of India and Officer in JMGS I in banks), the gross salary per month in Metros is Rs.48,800 and Rs.38,703 respectively, signifying a variance of 26.09%. At the highest level (ZM-S in LIC and GM in banks), the gross salary per month in Metros is Rs.140,421 and Rs.197,342 respectively, signifying a variance of 40.54%. That's why I say by the next wage revision, the gap between bank staff and LIC staff may widen further, so that LIC staff will receive twice the salary of bank staff in November, 2017.

After the 7th CPC recommendations are notified, bank staff will be exposed to greater shock.

What is to be done now, I leave it to the wisdom of all concerned.

Link To News Given by AIBOC