Comments On Union Letter

Mr. Pannavalan's COMMENTS ON HARVINDER SINGH’S PRESS RELEASE

( copy of Union Letter is given below )

I am really amused by the AIBOC general secretary’s action now. Should this not have been done 2 years ago?

Moreover, this press release is conspicuously silent with regard to -

1. Unregulated working hours of bank officers (as against fixed working hours for all in the government/other public sector organizations)
2. Working 6 days a week (as against 5 days a week for Govt/PSUs/I.T. Sector)
3. Full day working on Saturdays (even though Saturday is supposed to be only a half  day working for bankers)
4. Working on Sundays and other holidays (this has become so regular, affecting one’s family life and severely impacting one’s responsibilities to others outside the bank)
5. Very frequent transfers that also to far off places outside one’s linguistic region (Stability of tenure is not guaranteed; this kind of frequent transfers results in heavy drain in financial resources and quick exhaust of all one’s leave, besides causing great mental disturbance)
6. Risks encountered - Financial risk, reputation risk, career risk, threats to physical safety, health deterioration, show cause notices, suspensions and charge sheets
7. Doing the jobs of all others in the society, thus deviating from core banking

Probably, if all these are explained in detail, it will amount to open admission of failures, on the part of Trade Unions in banks.  Precisely because of this, they were (cleverly) omitted in the said press release issued by Mr Harvinder Singh, General Secretary of AIBOC.

Other important aspects not touched were:

1. Non-availability of Grade Pay for Bankers
2. Wide disparity in HRA paid (only a pittance is paid as HRA to bank staff)
3. Absence of Transport Allowance with variable D.A.  (Transport Allowance paid to Central government staff every month attracts full D.A.)
4. Denial of Children's Educational Allowance to Bank staff
5. Unlike their counterparts in the central government, bank staff are not eligible for Paternity leave
6. Bank staff can accumulate only up to 240 days of P.L. at any time.  In contrast, central government employees can accumulate their P.L. up to 300 days. Another tragedy here is, on one hand, bank officers are denied leave on genuine grounds and on the other, they are unable to accumulate P.L. beyond 300 days, leading to lapse of precious leave.  This is a great source of savings to the bank managements at the cost of their officers.
7. Most importantly, bank staff do not get their pension revised automatically with each wage revision, unlike the government employees.