Bank Union

The decision to call for a strike was taken after a meeting in Mumbai on Thursday

The two-day nationwide bank strike called by United Forum of Bank Union ended on Friday, impacting normal operations across the country. Lakhs of employees of public sector banks were on strike to protest against the proposed privatisation of banks by the government. Banks will work as usual on Saturday, as it is a working day. United Forum of Bank Union (UFBU) is an umbrella body of nine bank unions, including All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW). Services like deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque clearance and loan approvals remained paralysed due to the two-day strike. ATMs at different parts of the country went dry on the second day. Government treasury operations, negotiating of import and export bills, grant of loans, cash transactions, etc. were not possible and clearing operations were affected. In the three clearing centres of Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, about 3

In the last concluded session, Parliament passed a bill to allow privatisation of state-run general insurance companies

Says depositors lose their savings, wonders whether it is prudent to allow both the lender and the borrower to be owned by the same set of people

It further added that historically, the sovereign covered the loan interest waivers, but in the current situation, a shortfall in revenues both at the Centre and state level will not permit the same

The bank unions have called for a nationwide strike demanding to expedite the process of wage settlement due since November 2017

An industry wage pact is a bizarre performance appraisal as the benchmark for such a pact is the paying capacity of the weakest of banks

Banking services take a hit as two employee unions call for strike

Cash deposit and withdrawal, and cheque clearances have been impacted due to the nationwide strike

Functioning of branches and offices will be hit if the strike goes ahead on Tuesday

Bank officials have allegedly been working 12-18 hrs a day since the govt's Nov 8 announcement