NO HURRY FOR PEANUT WAGE HIKE

There has been limited optimism among our colleague officers in all the Public Sector Banks in the country regarding their salary revision (A five yearly ceremony due since Nov’2007). Even though there is a lot of anguish against peanut offered by the IBA, apparently 13 % hike, still our representative bodies negotiating the revision are unable to transmit the feelings of their members to the IBA and through them to the main stake holder, the Government of India. One fact must be borne in mind that though the IBA, represented by few CMDs of PSBs, are negotiators but the Central government being the largest stake holder of the PSBs is responsible for a fair wage settlement.

So far it appears that the negotiations between the IBA and the Trade Unions are more for pension issues rather than for salaries. This tendency is a natural corollary of the fact that the negotiators on both sides of the table are nearing their superannuation and are more interested to apportion a major share of load for pension payment than for giving a better package to those who have to run the banks in coming decades.

As all of us are aware that the Bank Officers have always got the salaries in line with their counterpart group ‘A’ officers in the central government of similar length of services. Historically, right from the starting salaries up to the highest salaries have been in line with those of the officers joining Group ‘A’ services in the Central Government and retiring at their respective top positions. Hence, the present salary revision is required to be done on the lines of the Central Government officers as per the sixth pay commission. This is more important if Government do not want to make public sector bankers a frustrated lot.

The forum is of the view that the public sector bankers have been playing a vital role in the growth of the country and the risk and responsibilities shared by them have also increased by leaps and bound over the time. Moreover, they also require a reasonable compensation in an era of liberalization affecting their quality of life adversely. Present PSB officer can’t imagine to educate his/her children even in the government supervised IITs and IIMs without taking loans, which was not the case in his/her senior colleagues. The wage structure outside PSU Banks has changed so dramatically, that the Public Sector Bankers are no longer considered better off people in Metros and are considered as marginalized lot.

Does profitability have any bearings on salaries and pensions of the employees of Indian Railways, India Post or PSUs in other sectors involved in nation building? Then, why our negotiations have been limited to a percentage of additional loads against the need of people working in the banks? Are the PSBs run purely on business lines like ICICI bank or CITIBANK? Are PSBs are not made to intervene in market stabilization even at loss? Are the PSBs not advised to buy currencies to stop depreciation of Rupee, when otherwise its sale would have been beneficial for them? Are the PSBs not opening branches in remote locations despite knowing well that no profit could be generated for the next few years from such branches? All such activities are not being compensated and even if some subsidy is received, it offsets the losses to a very limited extent only. A PSB officer collects taxes up to mid night and supervises elections like civil servants also. Being in Public Sector, each officer of the PSBs knows that these are part of functioning of the PSBs. But no one can deny that these types of activities definitely affect the profitability of the banks adversely. The irony is that the same profitability is being harped upon by the IBA when the salaries are fixed.

To be realistic to all the officers of the PSBs, the forum proposes that:

1. All the officers of the PSBs be given salaries in line with pay band 3 and pay band 4 settled by the sixth pay commission for central government officers.

2. All other perks should be brought in line with Central Govt. officers apart from those, which are exclusively for business developments.

3. Burden of pension should not form a part of the wage negotiations. Rather, the corpus of pension and provident funds should be transferred to the Consolidate Fund of India and the Government should pay the Pension and PF as they pay to the employees of Indian Railways, Indian Post and BSNL etc.

It is high time that the officers should communicate to their representatives for these demands and any other such demand they feel more relevant.

It is better that a better salary be aspired for, a few months later instead of settling for peanuts in a hurry.

A HAPPY PUBLIC SECTOR BANKER IS A FOUNDATION STONE FOR A SOUND ECONOMY