After lot of speculation, the Bank Wage Revision
talks finally came to an end today. The Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and
leaders of the Public Sector Bank Unions agreed on settlement of the 10th
Bipartite Wage revision with the annual wage hike in salary and allowance at 15%.
It has also decided that Bank employees will have a holiday on every second and
fourth Saturdays of the month, and all other Saturdays will be full working
days. The wage revision will be effective from November 1, 2012, which will be valid for a period of five years.
Background
Leaders of the Public Sector Bank Unions threatened
to call for a four-day nation-wide strike from February 25, 2015, to push for wage
revision. Bank unions also demanded for five working days a week, which was not
accepted by IBA. The wage revision (10th Bipartite Settlement) of Public Sector
Bank employees was pending since November 2012. The last (9th) Bipartite Settlement
with leaders of the Public Sector Bank Unions was signed on 27 April, 2010 and
was valid from 1 November, 2007 till 31 October, 2012. Each settlement is valid
for a period of five years. The 8th Bipartite
settlement wage talks covering the period 2002-07 provided bank employees a
13.25 per cent increase in wages on average, while the 9th wage talks covering
2007-12 gave them a 17.5 per cent increase on average.
Important Points of the agreement:
1. The annual wage increase in salary and
allowances will be at 15%, which works out to Rs. 4,725 Cr. on salary slip
components.
2. The wage revision will be effective from
November, 2012.
3. Every second and fourth Saturday of the
month will be a holiday and all other Saturdays will be full working days.
4. The new scales will be constructed after
merging dearness allowance corresponding to 4,440 points as on November 2011,
which works out to 60.15% and adding a load factor of 2% on Basic Pay Plus
Dearness Allowance as on 31st March 2012 amounting to around Rs. 597
crores.
Presently there are 27 Public Sector
Banks in the country with 8 lakh employee strength altogether. There are about
50,000 branches of these banks across the country.
Below is the final notice of the agreement
