AICBRF WELOME2015 On 1st January, when moon sets and sun rises, the world would wake up to a new dawn. As we step into New Year 2015, we would have completed 5 years of purposeful existence as a vibrant Retirees’ Organisation. We thankfully acknowledge your unstinted support and cooperation which provided us strength and confidence in meeting the challenges in the past and hope to receive the same in large measures in future. Friends, in retrospect, consequent to General Election held in April 2014, new Government at the Centre, having absolute majority making it strong enough to take independent decisions without any compulsion of coalition politics, was formed. Leadership of present government fought the election seeking public support on twin planks of “Development” and “Governance”. With this, the expectations of the people had gone up leaps and bounds. Banking industry, particularly, those from Public Sector expected more from the new Finance Minister and also the Prime Minister at the helm of affairs. The direction of both the Union Budget and Railway Budget for 2014-2015 is to provide more and more concessions to the Corporates at the expense of the poorer sections. Policy trajectory is for significant privatization of the economy through large scale sale of public sector shares and greater reliance on public-private partnership. FDI in insurance sector is increased to 49% now through an Ordinance and the disinvestment in PSU would be around 43425 Crores. Central Government is pursuing the policy of deregulation of petroleum prices. The prices of non-subsidised gas cylinders have been increased by Rs.16.50. Steep hike in freight charges in Railways contributed to the continuing price rise. (Average Working Class CPI – Quarter ending Sep. 2014 is 5767) In India, 93 per cent of the labour force is unorganised and a massive majority of this force lives in miserable conditions. Even in the urban areas, in manufacturing and services, more than 75 per cent of the labour force is yet to be organised. Typically, labour cost amounts to 10 to 25 per cent of the total cost in manufacturing. The labour laws impose certain restrictions as well as obligations on the employer in terms of hire and fire, retrenchment, closure of an establishment, compensation, work conditions, provident fund, paid leave, overtime, hazardous work, night shift employment of women etc. However, the industry is demanding a completely ‘flexible’ labour market to relax such restrictions and obligations and further cut down the wage cost. Rajasthan Govt. has recently amended the Industrial Disputes Act, Contract Labour Act and Factories Act adversely affecting the employees. Workers are being denied their dues and the government is now excluding them from the protection of labour laws, which the trade unions had won after years of struggles and sacrifice. NEW YEAR 2015 2 Recent ordinances promulgated by the President of India indicate that the Government is keenly interested in extending benefits only to the real estate barons and Corporate Sector. That is why they want to create a Union-free environment. In the arena of economic reforms, we find that the present NDA-2 government has also been pursuing the same neo-liberal policies as that of the previous UPA-2 government. History had never been sympathetic to the bank employees with regard to their periodic wage revision demands. Demonstrations, Agitations and Strikes preceded almost all their present privileges and monetary entitlements. In respect of 10th Bipartite Wage Revision Talks also, Demonstrations and Strikes were carried out on several days. IBA held 14 rounds of meetings with UFBU on wage revision so far. IBA has been citing ‘Increase in Bad Loans, Capital Adequacy norms under Basel III, higher provisioning for Pension’ etc., as reasons for not offering beyond 11% rise in Pay Slip Component. Hence the stalemate in wage revision talks continues. However, in the backdrop of IBA’s rigidity in its offer of not more than 11% rise in Pay Slip Component as against UFBU’s justification for higher per centage of increase in PSC, there is deadlock in further talks. It is learnt that the IBA, at the behest of the Central Government, has asked the banks to keep their Board of Directors updated as regards the status of industry level wage negotiations and also to re-visit the mandate for negotiated wage settlement given earlier by the Board. Thus, lack of adequate concern on the part of the Central Government regarding growing unrest in the banking industry and the IBA’s provocation of advising banks to re-visit the wage revision mandate have pushed the banks’ workforce and the retirees to the wall. As such, series of grim struggles including strike actions followed by indefinite strike are in the offing for securing reasonable and respectable wage revision, besides improvement in pensionary benefits. However, we recall that when the negotiations were in progress, IBA, in the wage talks held at Mumbai on 13.06.2014 agreed with the UFBU on retirees demands as follows: 1. On 100% Neutralisation of DA, IBA informed that they are favourably inclined to consider the demand of extending 100% DA for all pensioners and the same is awaiting the approval of the Government. 2. On improvement in Family Pension, IBA’s response was positive but they informed that the cost implication has to be properly worked out and Government’s approval is necessary for the same. 3. On Pension Updation, IBA stated that they were apprehensive about the same, since it involves substantial financial burden to the Banks. 4. IBA, however, informed subsequently in the meeting held on 26-09-2014 that in view of the high cost involved, it would be difficult to agree to Pension Updation. At the insistence of UFBU, IBA agreed that any viable and affordable proposition from the UFBU on Updation of Pension would be examined. In pursuit of Charter of Demands adopted by 3rd Triennial Conference of AIBRF held at Kolkata in March 2012, AIBRF has been coordinating its efforts with UFBU and called upon its members to support and participate in all their programmes, besides taking independent initiatives by approaching higher level officials in the Department of Financial Services, Parliamentarians & IBA representatives at various points of time. Further, AIBRF arranged Maha Dharna at Jantar Mantar, Delhi on 7th March 2014 and again on 02.12.2014 in front of State Bank of Hyderabad, Begumpet, Hyderabad, wherein the entire Central Committee Members of AIBRF were very vocal and vociferous in their protest against inordinate delay on the part of IBA-Govt. combine and demanded expeditious settlement of wages and other demands. Sub-Committee of AIBRF will be meeting on 12th January 2015 3 at Indore to take stock of the emerging challenges before us and to decide future course for winning retirees’ demands. Thanks to active involvement of our Team of Office Bearers & Central Committee Members spread across the country, we have been marching forward steadily for espousing the cause of retirees in our bank. Memorable events and notable achievements of our Federation in its onward march during the year 2014 are mentioned here below: 01. Our Federation’s Membership crossed 6600 as on 01.01.2014; 02. Enhancement in Ex-gratia amount: Pre-1986 Retirees - From Rs.300 + Dearness Relief to Rs.350/- + Dearness Relief; 03. Enhancement in Ex-gratia amount: Surviving Spouses of Pre-1986 Retirees – From Rs.1000/- (Consolidated) to Rs.175/- + Dearness Relief; 04. Alternate arrangement for crediting monthly pension on 1st day itself, in case first few day/s of succeeding month have been declared as Holiday/s in the State of Karnataka; 05. Introduction of modified format of PPO incorporating Family Pension Entitlement; 06. 2nd Central Committee Meeting of AICBRF was held at Vrindavan (Uttar Pradesh) on 8th & 9th March 2014; 07. Participation of 250 members of our affiliates in the AIBRF’s Jantar Mantar Dharna Programme held at New Delhi on 07.03.2014 for highlighting Bank Retirees’ Demands; 08. Healthy growth of Canara Bank Employees’ Pension Fund Corpus (Rs.8973.62 Crores in August 2014); 09. Extension of twin benefits of Preferential Rate of Interest by the Bank to Ex-Employee-cum-Senior Citizens on their Term Deposits irrespective of size and period of deposit with effect from 19.05.2014; 10. Extension of benefit of Annual Medical Aid of Rs.1000/- to Widow/er Pensioners in our Bank from out of Staff Welfare Measures; 11. Our affiliate Canara Bank Retirees’ Forum, Chennai held its 4th Triennial Conference at Chennai on 06.04.2014; 12. 5th Grievances Redressal Cell Meeting held at Bengaluru on 09.08.2014; 13. Participation of 3 Representatives from AICBRF in the 24th Conference of Canara Bank Employees’ Union held at Lucknow on September 11-13, 2014 as invitees & our Federation felicitated newly elected principal Office Bearers at Chennai; 14. Donation of Rs.55,000/- by AICBRF for providing relief to flood affected people in Jammu & Kashmir by collecting contributions from our affiliates/members; 15. Relaxation of guidelines by Pension Fund in November 2014 on submission of Life Certificates; 16. Our affiliate in Karnataka Viz: Canara Bank Retirees’ Association - Karnataka successfully held its 1st Conference at Bengaluru on 27.07.2014; 17. Canara Bank Retirees’ Association – Madurai held its 6th Conference on 27.07.2014; 18. In the Farewell Meeting held on 30.08.2014 at New Delhi, Sri D.D.Rustagi, former General Secretary of CBEU & Joint Secretary of AIBEA was felicitated on attaining superannuation from the service of our bank by our Chairman Sri A.K.Bansal; 19. Our affiliate Canara Bank Retirees’ Association (Regd.) – Kerala held its 7th Conference at Thiruvananthapuram on 18.09.2014; 20. Formation of 14th Unit of our Federation (Canara Bank Retirees’ Welfare Association - Bihar) in the State of Bihar at its Foundation Conference held at Patna on 16.11.2014; 21. Extension of free transactions for our bank card holders using our own ATMs irrespective of locations and number of transactions in a month and 22. Introduction of Doorstep Banking Facility to Pensioners. 4 We desire to do many things more, benefitting retirees in our Bank in the days to come, including formulation of Hospitalisation Scheme. For making them to happen and to fulfil our wish-listed demands in the New Year 2015, please reach out to the unreached retirees of our bank in your place/area with our messages/circulars and enlist their membership to our fold so that our Federation becomes stronger. It is our ardent desire that before we hold our 2nd Triennial Conference due in the year 2016, we should work together with missionary zeal for increasing our membership so as to cross 10000 mark. Friends! Dark clouds of uncertainty are hovering over the banking horizon in India with the setting of blue print to be finalised in the Bankers’ Retreat called ‘Gyan Sangam’ (Knowledge Confluence) being held by the Central Govt. at NIBM, Pune on 2nd & 3rd January 2015 for implementing Action Plan for “Banking Reforms” further. In view of complex and complicated scenario emerging, the New Year 2015 will unfold more and more struggles in the banking industry. We, in the vanguard of the mainstream of the bank retirees’ movement should be well prepared to respond to the agitation calls of AIBRF for actively participating in the ongoing struggle in coordination with the UFBU. This, we believe, will ensure ultimate victory in defending Public Sector Banking in the larger interest of the People of India, besides culminating in Negotiated Wage Settlement & Joint Note so as to benefit not only the workforce but also retired bank employees. Let New Year 2015 dawns with an augury that delivers the Bank Retirees the long awaited outcome. Team AICBRF wishes you and your family members a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. Yours Sincerely, (S.V.Srinivasan) General Secretary
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 04:50:13 +0000
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