Over 210,000 officers and clerks of State Bank of India struck work demanding revision in pension payment, between 3-10 April.
In its 200-year history, this is the first instance where SBI officers and clerks joined hands for an indefinite strike that brought to a grinding halt all activities at 9,000 branches spread across the country.
Shantha Raju, General Secretary of All India State Bank Officers' Federation and All India Bank Officers' Confederation, the mastermind behind the strike talks to Tamal Bandyopadhyay about the future course of action.
Excerpts:
SBI employees get three superannuation benefits -- gratuity, provident fund as well as pension -- while public sector bank employees get only two benefits. How do you justify your strike?
We did not demand pension as an additional benefit. We struck work to retain whatever benefits we had been enjoying. Pension has been available to SBI employees for about 150 years.
The family pension had not been revised for 20 years and pension had not been revised for 14 years. The recently retired employees and officers had been getting pension as per their salary scale in 1993. A retired deputy managing director was getting a pension of Rs 4,250 under the 1993 scale, while his actual pension should have been close to Rs 20,000.
Was it a management sponsored strike?
Everybody had an interest in this issue including the chairman. But it is uncharitable to say that the management supported the strike. The strike was a success as the workmen union, including the sub-staff, participated. The management tried to avert the strike and the chairman asked for some more time to settle the issue.
You called off the strike even though the government had not accepted your demand fully.
The government did not concede to our demand (revision of pension up to 50 per cent of salary) but accepted that pension is a right of SBI employees and it needs to be updated from time to time. We hope to bridge the gap and make it 50 per cent for all officers at the next bipartite wage settlement.
You would not have accepted this had the clerical staff not called off the strike.
If this charge is true then they could have settled earlier when an offer was made covering about 90 per cent of the clerical staff. There was no question of any organisation independently deciding to call off the strike. It's a joint struggle...
Didn't the management offer you a better deal earlier but you rejected that?
This is absolutely wrong. To be frank with you, the management had little scope to settle with us.
Do you see a ripple effect on the entire industry with other public sector banks demanding pension as a third benefit?
The AIBEA, the strongest employees' union, has gone on record to say that there will not be any counter demand from the industry for pension as the SBI employees were merely asking for a revision of pension, not making a fresh demand.
Weren't you irresponsible by giving a strike call in these days of economic reforms?
We explored all possible avenues before taking the plunge. It's not a happy situation for any union but we were driven to the wall.
The entire public sector banking industry, including SBI, is over-staffed and under-skilled. Will you recommend another round of VRS for the industry?
There is no need for VRS and, in fact, we must continuously recruit from the market as banks are rapidly diversifying and cross-selling products.
I don't agree that people are unskilled. Even the sub-staff who have been promoted as clerks are working on computers... They can acquire skills if banks train them. All nine unions have given their commitment to redeployment.
There is a lot of scope for utilising the existing staff in an effective manner. Instead of doing that, banks including the Reserve Bank of India, have been outsourcing work. The RBI is even outsourcing sensitive work like clearing (of cheques) and debt management. If you say we have excess staff, how can you go for outsourcing? We have already established a co-ordination forum with the RBI union and united forum of bank unions to fight this.
So, the next indefinite strike will be against outsourcing?
We are not visualising any strike at the moment, but we want to launch a national campaign against outsourcing.
Do you see the success of your strike galvanising the entire trade union movement in the country?
From the third day onwards we received suo moto support from all unions -- even from outside the banking industry. An indefinite strike in an era of economic reforms is unheard off. It will inspire them and rejuvenate the trade union spirit.
What message did the strike send to the SBI management?
The management must introspect and find out what went wrong with the employees... Pension is only one issue. The entire HRD system has been damaged in SBI. Whenever the management has given a call for any new initiative, the employees have given their best to make it a success. In fact, the SBI is the first bank to sign a computerisation agreement with the unions. We were attacked on the streets by the Left unions for signing the agreement! We have accepted full computerisation and the single-widow concept (where one counter addresses all business needs of customers) and yet got alienated... We are not asking for the moon, the salary of the ICICI Bank employees... But give us something respectable.
Why don't you break away from the industry-wide wage settlement?
There is no need to break away from the industry settlement as within the settlement, the banks can have freedom to offer more to their employees. The government has created so much of hype about autonomy but the banks cannot pay even a rupee to any employee without the government's approval. How do we compete with private and foreign banks?