Message from whatsapp
Good morning. Take time to read our history (banking fraternity). The most unfortunate segment of service sector who contributed directly for growth of Indian economy.
Forward:
BANK UNIONS TAKING A PIGGY RIDE ON THE BACK OF THE MEMBERS
Bank Unions redefined trade unionism. Collective surrendering replaced collective bargaining. Four decades back, the Bank Officer had wages more than Central Government officials. Those who believed in bilateralism allowed unilateralism through Pillai Committee Recommendations in 1979. Within three and a half decades, the bankers who earlier had higher pay than government employees now get less than 30 to 40 percent than government employees. A unique achievement of unions and associations out of bilateralism for their own benefit! Bank employees toil hard from dawn to dust for six days a week in hectic mode, cracking their bones and exhausting their brain. The government counterpart works in a leisurely mode for five days a week. Nationalisation and ownership of banks by government make bank employees its employees who are to be paid out of exchequer. But as their wage bills are appropriated against the income they generate in banks, government does not pay anything for translating its policies into reality.
The time frame the government gave for next Bipartite Settlement is over. But the settlement is in the air. Early settlement will reduce the quantum of levy. There can be no other logical reason for delaying the settlement. .
MoF, GoI had directed IBA to advise all banks to scrap the clause for forfeiture of service from regulation 22 (4) (b) and to give effect to it vide letter F No.4/8/4/95-IR dated 24.12.1997. The amendment could be given effect to only by giving chance for option to those who missed it earlier being unable to opt on or before 26.01.1996 when the deleted clause was there in the regulations. Banks that amended the regulation duped the employees by not giving the option, thus defeating the very purpose of the amendment. Unions / Associations did not know what took place and blinked at it.
The option was later allowed through the Joint Note dated 27.04.2010, purely on unlawful terms. Employees on rolls were subjected to a levy of 2.8 times pay for November, 2007 and payment of a huge CPF balance while their counterparts who opted earlier paying a much lesser contribution in 1996 were given option free of any contribution. Similar manner of people got discriminatory treatment opposed to the Constitution of the nation!.
For employees retired prior to the date of the Joint Note, unions/associations agreed to a contribution of 56 percent of CPF in addition to refund of CPF paid on retirement for paying them pension from an irrelevant date of 27.11.2009. When CPF and 56 percent of it, presumably by way of interest for the period the amount was with the employee is paid back, pension, the benefit in lieu of CPF shall flow from the date of retirement and not from 27.11.2009. A preposterous and irrational conclusion inconsistent with regulation 52 (1) that mandates payment of pension from the day following the date of retirement which is irrational!
Regulation 7 delineates the components of Pension Fund. Pension Funds can receive only these items. It excludes a contribution from the employee other than the initial transfer of his CPF to Pension Fund. But Banks, with the concurrence of unions and associations, took from their members and former members the contribution of 2.8 times pay and 56 percent of CPF in derogation of the regulation. Unions and associations agreed with IBA to dupe the employees through the Joint Note. The statutory regulation does not warrant the contribution and it is refundable to those concerned.
Conclusion 10 of the Joint Note stipulates that IBA shall forward the Joint Note along with a copy of the Pension Regulations to the government for its approval and further action of amending the Pension Regulations pursuant to section 19 of the Banking Companies (Acquisition & Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970/1980 (“the Act”). The further action mandated by sub-section 4 of section 19 of the Act is placing the Joint Note in both the Houses of the Parliament, as soon as it is signed for a period of 30 days for their nod. The Joint Note signed on 27.04.2010 is not so far laid in the Houses despite lapse of seven years. It is on the basis of this dud document that banks raised the unlawful contributions from employees and retired employees and denied pension from the date of retirement to 26.11.2009 abetted by unions/associations.
Regulation 5 (2) makes payment of pension in accordance with the Regulations as the sole purpose of Pension Fund. Hence Pension Funds cannot pay pension in accordance with the Joint Note to those who have not opted on or before 26.01.1996 i.e. within 120 days of the notification as regulation 3 fixes this date as the time frame for any category of employee to opt for pension. Any pension paid out of the Pension Fund has to be from the day following the date of retirement as mandated by regulation 52 (1). Pension paid to the beneficiaries of the Joint Note out of the Pension Funds constituted under the Pension Regulations from 27.11.2009 is a misapplication of Pension Funds. IBA remains on Achilles’ heels and it is accountable for the erroneous payments, which is mounting month after month.
Regulations 5 (3) and 11 fix the banks as sole contributor to the Pension Fund. The contribution of 2.8 times pay from employees and 56 percent of CPF from retired employees derogate the regulations. Sub-section 1 of section 19 of the Act permits amendment to a regulation only through notification in the gazette. The Joint Note is not so far notified. This apart, sub-sections 1 and 4 prohibit the Boards of Banks from amending a regulation in a way prejudicial to what is done earlier under a regulation. The provisions for paying pension from 27.11.2009 instead of from the day following the date of retirement and the contributions which derogate regulations 5 (3), 11 and 7 makes the Joint Note unfit to be laid in the Houses of the Parliament as they prejudice what is earlier done under the relative regulations. The Joint Note can never ever be laid in the Parliament to give it force of law on account of the prejudicial conclusions. Pension Regulations are remaining the same as notified on 29.09.1995 and yet the unions and associations remain shy in getting the Pension Regulations enforced for reasons best known to them only.
Pension Funds are built up of contributions which banks were to make previously to CPF pursuant to EPF and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. The contributions are the statutorily deferred wages of the employees. It is wages paid and retained by banks and is not the money of banks. Payment of pension does not bring in any expenditure to banks or to government as it is out of the Pension Fund. In all Public Sector Banks, Pension Funds are abounding in resources and the denial of due benefits out of them has no raison d’etre. Instead, it is a crime and an offence to law.
Section 10 (7) of the Act permits the Boards of Banks to declare a dividend and to retain surplus profits as accumulated reserves only after making due provision for all legitimate expenses like bad debts, establishment expenses and superannuation funds. It thus gives a prior charge to superannuation funds over the profits of banks. Even in case of loss, banks should make due provision to superannuation funds and the remainder alone can be declared as dividends or kept as reserves as it is a statutory obligation. Whereas banks had been regularly paying dividends, bank employees were plundered. Their salary and terminal benefits are regularly robbed by the banks and IBA and paid to government to pay higher salary to its employees.
Regulation 56 viz. Residuary Provisions underlines that the Bank Pension Scheme is exactly on all fours with the liberalized Central Pension Scheme by laying down that in case of doubt in the matter of application of these regulations, regard may be had to the corresponding provisions of Central Civil Service Rules, 1972 applicable for Central Government employees with such exceptions and modifications as the Bank, with the previous sanction of the Central Government may, from time to time, determine. The Central Government has not so far permitted any deviation to any bank from regulation 56 and it is hence imperative that as in the case of Central Government employees whose pension gets revised with each Pay Commission, pension in banks also shall be revised with each bipartite settlement. This is an already sanctioned benefit and not a charity to beg from IBA or government again as if it is not a sanctioned benefit.
Pension Funds has no purpose than payment of pension / family pension. Employees recruited after 31.03.2010 need not be serviced out of Pension Funds as they are covered by PFRDA Scheme. There is huge corpus in Pension Fund of all banks which is the deferred wages of employees. The annual growth in each bank can foot two to four times the present pension to all the pensioners of all banks. Even as things go like this, due pension and revision defined by the statutory regulations is denied to the retired bank employee on a fraudulent plea of paucity of funds. IBA and banks are indulging in a big crime by unlawfully detaining the money in Pension Funds with no intelligent reckoning and unions/associations are abetting the wrong.
The pension denied to retired bankers and the unlawful contributions raised from the beneficiaries of the Joint Note are lying in Pension Funds and earning compound interest to them. Banks run no loss or expenditure in settling all the amounts with such compound interest. Unions /associations remaining mute on procuring back the money to retired members is absurd. It takes trade unionism to shame.
C H V was firm on not signing the last Bipartite Settlement unless and until retiree issues are settled. He took a “U” turn and signed it along with a Record Note consenting that there is no contractual relationship for banks with their retired employees. It is true. There is no contractual relationship. The relationship is statutory and life-long, arising out of the Bank (Employees’) Pension Regulations. Payment of due benefits is a statutory obligation even if banks are running in loss. But even as banks are operating in profits, statutory benefits are denied notwithstanding the fact that such payment brings in zero cost either to the banks or to government.
Bank Unions might be following the footsteps of the Father of the Nation by practicing Voluntary Poverty. They advocate it for members only. From them, they collect subscriptions and levies for selling out their statutorily vested benefits. This is the present mode of bank unionism. IBA and unions outpace the British in plundering bank men and operate a slave dynasty in the key industry of the nation.
Unions gave strike call for a day in relation to merger of Associate Banks with SBI, recovery of NPAs, reimbursement of demonitisation expenses to banks etc. Merger of associate banks was an irresistible issue as it was already decided by the government and Boards. Recovery of NPA is the role of the bank officials for which agitation is meaningless. Reimbursement of demonitisation expenses could help the bank heads to project higher profits and the gain will go back to the government as dividend. The strike was entirely in furtherance of absurd demands. The purpose it served was denial of banking facilities to the general public for a day. The employees lost their salary for a day and it helped bank heads augment their profits! Legitimate labour issues are hidden under the carpet and trivial issues are pushed.
The banking intelligentsia comprising IBA is in troubled waters for crafting the Joint Note with unsustainable terms with no grey matter is their skulls and are sheltered by the unions / associations that remain reluctant to challenge the agreement which the maker itself has breached through non compliance with its clause 10. There cannot be a bigger loot than that done by public sector banks through the Joint Note making banks halls of shame especially as the victims are senior citizens in hapless condition who built up the banks and the nation.
Any union/association worth a pinch of salt and with commitment to members and past members in the industry can come forward and challenge the Joint Note and demand refund of the unlawful contribution raised to Pension Funds and release of pension from the date of retirement to 27.11.2009 to the retired employees or take recourse to organizational methods as it is a just cause. If they lack spine and nerve at least to conserve and protect the statutorily vested benefits of the members, the right path for them is to consign their flags and banners to flame or abandon them in the Arabian Sea and stop plundering the members through subscriptions and unauthorized levies arbitrarily collected on wage revisions.
Issued in furtherance of natural justice on 17th June, 2017
COMMON CAUSE CONSORTIUM, KERALA
TCRA 87, SREEVILASAM ROAD, N PARAVUR, KERALA – 683 513
comoncausekerala@yahoo.com Mob; 9446385945
आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः- Let noble thoughts come to me from all directions
No comments:
Post a Comment