Bank staff to go on strike against merger of 3 PSBs

The All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) has called a strike on December 26 and January 8 and 9. The strike has been called against the proposed amalgamation of three banks — Vijaya, Dena, and Bank of Baroda — and the ‘anti-people economic policies and anti-worker labour policies’ of the government, the AIBEA said.

All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) has called for three days’ strike — once on December 26, and again on January 8-9, 2019. The strike has been called against the proposed merger of three banks — Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank and Bank of Baroda — and the “anti-people economic policies and anti-worker labour policies” of the government.

The December strike has been called against the proposed merger of the three banks, said C H Venkatachalam, general secretary, AIBEA. The government had in September approved the merger of the three public sector lenders. The strike will be organised by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine employee and officer unions.

The government and the concerned banks were moving ahead with their decision for amalgamation and hence it was decided to give the call for strike, Venkatachalam said. All unions under UFBU will participate in the stopwork, said Ashwani Rana, VP of the National Organisation of Bank Workers.

Following the government nod, the respective boards of these banks gave their approval for the amalgamation. The merged entity will be third largest lender of the country after State Bank of India (SBI) and HDFC Bank.

As at June-end, the total business size of the three entities together was ~14.82 trillion. Of the three banks, Dena Bank is the weakest, with nonperforming asset (NPA) ratio of 11.04 per cent and business of ~1.72 trillion, as compared to 5.4 per cent NPA and ~10.2trillion business of Bank of Baroda and 4.10 per cent NPA and ~2 trillion worth business of Vijaya Bank.