Bank Officers are again cheated by AIBOA and AIBOC

Is this settlement we are expecting ? This time around we are confident that the junior officers have been given a raw deal and as usual they have failed to redress their grievances. We are confident that the pay increase as well as arrears for sub staff will more than the junior officers .What a shame. Now a Bank Probationary Officer is equivalent to a peon of government" and "officers at senior level are at par with clerks of government . What ridicule you made of us union leader ?. Throw these union leaders from their post the fresh/new officers must resign from the union membership otherwise we will again cheated in next settlement. This is not a pay revision but an alms to the beggar.It is better for the juniors to resign from the present unions and form a separate union as five to six years from now most of the seniors will retire .The new union should exclusively fight for better pay packets for Junior Officers which are comparable with the ones in the private sector as we do the same kind of work if not more. Come on juniors, let us unite otherwise we will be trampled by the self serving seniors who are not at all concerned about the welfare of the juniors .

MOU SIGNED BETWEEN IBA & UFBU

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU FOR UNIQUE DISPLAY OF UNITY. MOU SIGNED BETWEEN UFBU & IBA ON WAGE REVISION SETTLEMENT & PENSION OPTION. WAGE REVISION 17.5%, PENSION TO ALL - COST SHARING 70:30, FINALISATION OF SETTLEMENT & ARREARS PAYMENT SHALL BE WITHIN 90 DAYS. DETAILS FOLLOW

BA, bank union to meet over wage revision

KOLKATA: The Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) have agreed to meet on November 27 to take the wage bipartite

talks forward. Over 7 lakh public sector bank employees will keenly wait for the outcome of the meeting. Wage revision for them is due from November 2007.

Incidentally, both negotiating parties have agreed on a 17.5% wage hike. They have also in principle agreed to offer monthly pension to 2.66 bank employees, who did not opt for it in 1993. But their last meeting in the final week of September remained inconclusive as they could not arrive at the accounting methodology of pension.

"Issues like accounting for the cost of pension and the cost sharing arrangement between bank management and employees, the proposed introduction of New Pension Scheme (NPS) and variable pay are some issues that need to be resolved," said All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) president Rajen Nagar.

UFBU -- the umbrella organization for nine leading bank unions -- is not also comfortable with IBA’s proposal to introduce NPS for bankers joining after April 2010.

IBA and UFBU jointly finalise the pay hike plans for public sector bank employees. Talks on the eighth bipartite meeting has been on for quite sometime now. Public sector banks including State Bank of India have 2.44 lakh officers and 4.68 lakh workmen employees who are awaiting a wage revision now.

SBI staff seek hike in remuneration

Kolkata, Aug. 13 State Bank of India, it appears, will continue to struggle with the problem of staff shortage unless the remuneration of its employees is significantly stepped up.

According to the State Bank of India Staff Association, Bengal Circle, more than 13,500 employees of the bank retired in 2008-09, and though the bank recruited 33,000 people during the year, an estimated 40 per cent of the new recruits left on account of the poor pay packets.

The bank’s business is growing and with it the expectations of its customers about service quality. To render satisfactory customer service, the bank will need a motivated workforce. But the association apprehends it will not be possible to attract good people and thus build a motivated workforce at the current levels of remuneration. The problem will assume critical proportions in the next four years when a large chunk of the existing employees retire.

Contrary to the general perception, the remuneration of bank employees is poor vis-À-vis that of Central and State Government employees. As a spokesman for the association points out, the total remuneration of a clerk based in a metro and working in the lowest grade in SBI is Rs 7,919 per month, which is to rise to Rs 9,300 per month as per the Indian Banks’ Association’s recent offer of a 17.5 per cent wage hike. This compares poorly with the remuneration of a lower division clerk in the West Bengal Government, whose starting monthly income is Rs 11,880 and that of an upper division clerk in the Central Government, Rs 17,150.

A probationary officer in SBI starts with a salary of Rs 19,181 per month and in other banks Rs 16,146, says the spokesman. Side by side, under the State’s School Service Commission, a teacher with a Master’s degree starts at a monthly salary of Rs 21,000, a teacher with an Honours degree with Rs 19,000, and a teacher with a just pass degree at Rs 16,800. A West Bengal Civil Service Grade ‘A’ Officer starts with a salary of Rs 27,810, he adds.