OPEN LETTER TO UFBU & IT'S
CONSTITUENT UNIONS
ON
Role of IBA in Banking:
INDIAN BANKS' ASSOCIATION
Trouble Shooter
OR
Trouble Perpitrator !!
Well, at best such high headedness can be expected of management to ignore Unions/members letters. Comrades are not expected to be so. Anyway, communication gap is unhealthy and it breeds misunderstanding, mistrust and disinformation.
To avoid such a situation, effective communication is a tool to handle it. Today every individual, unions and leaders are most confused lot on ground zero, where Unions operate. Why to blame social media, if that works on these planks?
Faults lie with apex Unions that they have put a wall between themselves and ground functionaries. Better, they understand this and ensure flow of information with more clarity & transparency. It will make Unions more trust worthy, vibrant and reliable institution. Today nobody is happy with their Unions or leaders, a very bad indeed.}
To,
UFBU & IT'S CONSTITUENT UNIONS:
Dear Sirs,
We invite your kind attention to IBA letter 30th Sept.,2019, addressed to it's member Banks, giving there in it's legal locus standi. In social media constant reports have been surfacing, questioning the authority under which IBA has been functioning all these years. People raised the point of no-registration, as such no legal entity, but working as super cop for Banking. Pertinent question has been, how and why Banks or the Govt have been engaging IBA for host of policy decisions, agreements and memorandum of understandings on their behalf? At the same time, same questions rest with UFBU/Bank Unions why they entertain IBA in their affairs.
IBA derives enormous financial contributions in several hundreds of crore every year and it lavishly spends to twist and turn the situation. In one sentence, it's just extra constitutional entity of no legal status or identity involved in unaccountable businesses. If something is not legal then that's illegal, hope you agree to it !
Now, we would like to raise questions on IBA's institutional framework as under:
1. Is it a cell company floated by Banks & recognized by Finance Ministry or it has any legal status, incorporated under any law of the land?
2. Is it constitutional, regulated under any law and recognized entity or just a Club of Bankers, voluntary & unaccountable?
3. Is it a legal body and accountable or just free from any law of the land?
4. Is it covered under RTI Act?
5. It has been signing settlements/ agreements under Industrial Disputes Acts, advising and interfering in Policy matters and decisions of PSBs, but under which capacity or authority is not clear. Has it been empowered by DFS and if so under what law, regulations or procedures of the land?
6. It has been collecting crores from PSBs and private Banks, every year as fees etc. PSBs are public sector entities. If IBA is a private & voluntary association of Banks, how Public sector entities, PSBs, can fund IBA in such a manner? Are PSBs doing any contribution to Unions of their Banks, which in fact are legal bodies & recognized as representative organization of workforce, which in fact relate to & represent their workforce and directly contribute in generating surplus?
7. MOF vide letter No:F.14/7/92-IR(Vol-II) dated 24.2.2012 authorized Dy. Chief Executive of IBA to provide Group Insurance policies for both serving and retired employees from the Welfare Funds. We fail to understand Unions' conspicuous silence in this regard when the IBA Chief prevented Banks from taking any action in the matter. However, after lapse of 3 years and 7 months, IBA wrote to Banks to provide mediclaim insurance facilities to retirees at par with that of serving staff, vide it's circular No.HR-IR/2015-16/XBPS/J/1413 dated 1.10.2015. But, the IBA Chairman insisted that the premium should be borne by the retirees even though there were adequate balance in the Welfare Funds. It was in contravention & disregard of DFS letter under reference. Really, has IBA such power as to supress or disregard govt directives? It's madding to note, UFBU/ Unions remained in IBA company & totally toed later's line.
8. Thereafter, the IBA Chief Executive allowed the Insurance company to unilaterally increase the premium by 1259% for officer retirees and by 584% for workmen retirees in last 4 years, which is unheard of in the history of insurance business in the country, that too by a Public Sector insurer, UIIC.
9. As a result of inept handling of HR issues, numerous cases have so far been filed against Banks/ GOI/ IBA by the bank pensioners/ Unions in various High Courts, crores are being wasted on litigations. DFS is aware of certain Hon'ble SC decisions, be it 1616/1684 pay/pension issue or one SBI Chairman giving unconditional apology in a contempt case. Despite SC ruling that in an industry there can't be discrimination in compensation, but sheer apathy prevails in Banking at the instance of IBA where a section of Retirees are not paid same rate of DA as others. It's known as 100% DA case, now under curative petition at SC. Working employees get DA relief on quarterly basis, but Pensioners get it on half yearly basis. IBA insisted on segregating a part of Basic Pay increase into Special Allowance, in 10th Settlement, just to disqualify for Pension calculation which has been held ultra vires by Court. In second pension option, settled principles, as envisaged in Pension Regulations,1995, were compromised to the disadvantage of optees. The records speak of numererous such instances of fouls, ultimately causing unrest, agitations, court cases etc. in Banking. You are aware of it. It desired steps on your part, but we find no action from your side, thus supporting IBA's devil work.
11. IBA has issued a Circular letter dated 30th September, 2019 clarifying to their member Banks it's ( IBA's) legal status. IBA admits in it's communication, it's voluntary organization, neither govt/ govt dept nor regulator, nor even self regulated organization. It says, it has no authority over Banks, it doesn't issue any direction, its not amendable to writ etc. It cites the decision of Bombay High Court in writ petition 2796/2005 & 1388/2006 ( Kishore S. Boat v/s IBA) to absolve itself from any responsibility or accountability, formal or informal, legal or otherwise. We are astonished to note, UFBU/Unions just passed it off, as of no concerns at all. It would have been appropriate course on your part to write to Govt to abandon IBA, direct PSBs Executives to disassociate from IBA, stop funding. Not only this, you should have demanded of govt to confiscate assets, since the same were funded by PSBs. IBA says, it's nothing, but UFBU is giving it Prophet status & offering flowers.
12. Today Banking is hot bed, totally in grip of anti-IBA wave, because of the play that IBA plays with the HR issues of Banking. For reference, govt directed in Jan., 2016, 22 months in advance, to start next wage revision talks, so as you to clinch settlement before 1.11.2017. Why did it not move is a question on their wrong intention. UFBU/Unions too joined IBA in this matter. By now in over 30 sittings starting from May, 2017- stretch over 29 months, IBA has been just humiliating you & precipitating the situation, adding fuel to fire. 2% increase offer was no less than a slap on your ckeek. In Officers 2 days strike, Dharana on mandate issue, you remained at a distant point as IBA was. Here you stood with IBA and enjoyed a knee walk of biggest Officer Association. It all make IBA wreckless. There is no control over it's behavior.
13. If social media is taken a look, it mirrors anti-IBA resentments, anger and anguish among working & retired banking fraternity. It depicts bankmen as most saddened lot. Social media give a vivid display of most pathetic and inhuman depiction of Pensioners plights & miserable life that made hell of them due to no pension revision ever since it has been introduced from Jan. 1986. Could it be believed in Banking, where powerful UFBU/ Unions and bilaterism exist for over 5 decades and wage revisions have had taken place from 1998, 2002, 2007, 2012 & talks are ahead for 2017, but of no Pension Revision or any single penny worth relief out of huge Welfare Funds being allocated every year as per government directive?
14. We, therefore, urge upon you to please have a glance over entire scenarios in Banking, role of PSBs, IBA Executives etc which in nut shell depicts nursing total anti- employees/officers wave. Bankmen or Retirees do not examine the things meticulously, rather take a prima-fasie view, because PSBs are owned by govt and bankmen think, how such acts could be done without knowledge and permission of Govt. by IBA! They are right in their perception. But, fact is that it's total creation of IBA. Greatest irony is that bank men believe that UFBU/ Unions are in league with IBA. This belief must end.
15. Please, therefore, write to Govt to dismantle or takeover IBA, make it a legal body and accountable. In the meantime Banks must be stopped paying Crores in whatsoever names to IBA. IBA's illegal status is undisputed in their own admission, so why the govt should engage an illegal body or organization, without any authority & regulatory status for dealing Banking. UFBU should also disassociate with IBA and request Govt to appoint appropriate Authority to look into wages, pension and service conditions so that the disparities and huge deficits in wages, pension and service conditions are abridged. Better, like Railways, Defense etc., UFBU should think about linking Banks with Pay Commission Recommendations to bring sense of fair play, satisfaction and longer lasting peace and stable IR in Banking. Looking to Bankers operational risk & responsibilities, they deserve superior deals. Why should the UFBU not think out of box, as PSBs are owned by Govt and dedicated to nation building and economic growth? Further, how it matters, if UFBU presents & pleads it's case before Commission. Same way you are doing with IBA. Gap is such, it can't be abridged by the mechanism you follow. Further, bilaterism has proved to be futile, counter productive. It failed to deliver legitimate & comparative compensation. Just, to have a right to ink a bad deal is not better than a bigger loath achieved from third forum. The very foundation- affordability or Paying Capacity- of revision of wages, pension & other service conditions is wrong and irrelevant.
We sincerely request you to please look into all above aspects and take some decision to ponder over the dismaying situations that prevails and persists quite detrimental to Banking and its workforce.
Greetings
(J. N. Shukla)
National Convenor,
Forum of Bank Pensioner Activists,
PRAYAGRAJ
31.10.2019
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