Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Trade Union Leaders Are Sleping, Wage Revision Not Possible

Trade union leaders in public sector banks are perhaps sleeping or waiting rain of money by virtue of luck. They protested merger of banks in the past but are  now silently watching the developments taking place towards achievement of merger of banks. Perhaps government will get success in changing the agenda of leaders from fight for wage revision and that for 5 days week to fight against merger and attack on unity of bank employees.

Neither Government of India nor Indian Bank Association (IBA) is serious on wage hike. There is no doubt that even mother does not feed a child until he or she weeps. When leaders are silent spectators of indifference and casual approach of IBA and when they are even not able to build pressure for getting date of dialogue on wage settlement , they cannot be expected to fight for better scale and better amenities for bank employees in Xth Bipartite .

I hope these leaders should now prepare Charter of Demand for next settlement and submit the same to member employees so that members feel relaxed at least with Charter of Demand. Members will fly in dreamland created by Charter of Demand envisaging 50% or 100 % hike in wage as they have been flying for last two years waiting hike of 30% to 40% . Leaders should start  trying  for XI bipartite settlement keeping in view the loss of time in arriving at success in signing of Xth Bipartite.

Another remedy for weak and incompetent leaders in my view is that leaders should totally boycott the meeting with IBA and leave the issue fully in control of Government and IBA. Through this step, I think members will at least save monthly  subscription payable to unions as well as save contribution amount  payable to Unions out of arrears generated by delayed settlement. It will be better for bankers to amalgamate them with central government employees or even with state government employees. They should ask the government  whether bank staff are part of state government or that of central government .

Both ways , either as state government employees or central government employees bank employees will prove to be gainer in long run.These leaders should now at least stop the job of trade unionism and leave the fate of staff on the mercy of government and politicians .

In seventies and eighties bank unions used to treated as active, militant  and member friendly .At least leaders of award staff used to build pressure on government for amicable and better wage hike. And officers used to get the hike automatically. Unfortunately leaders of award staff have also aligned with that of officers union and hence they all now wish to remain in good book of local Bank head , perhaps to serve their self interest , at least not for the betterment of their colleagues for whom they are picked up as leaders. 

 Now a days when we are in era of reformation, these leaders have also become management friendly and government friendly so that their kith and kin , their friends and relatives and finally their own colleagues of their own choice are served better . Leaders are busy perhaps in saving corrupt officers who became wealthy by indulging in wrong lending for earning bribe money and costly gifts from borrowers. They perhaps  care only for top officials who are trapped in CBI or CVC inquiries. They work in nexus with top management so that their few blind followers called as flatterers are given preferred chance in promotional processes and given cream posting. Or at best , they will win the heart of top management in getting reimbursement of newspaper cost or some tea allowances.

I am unable to understand why only wage revision of bank employees is delayed by such a abnormal period and not that of SAIL. Coal India, and central government employees. This is astonishing that majority of bank employees are annoyed with leaders but they continue to have trust on leaders . Perhaps they wonder in dreamland if they think that leaders are as honest as they used to be in eighties and before. Time has changed, perception of union leaders have also changed. They (union leaders ) become Hero as soon as they are elected leaders in the same way as politicians become Heroes when they re voted to power.

Politicians are at least voted out in next election, but in banks leaders cannot be removed because members are least bothered of their future , permanent future. I think members should try to understand whether the are safe in the hands of their leaders and if no, they should now ponder over better alternatives. Otherwise  Government will accomplish their task of merger and consolidation , task of financial inclusion, task of tax collection or salary payment of government employees, task of looting banks through write off of loans , building pressure on wrong lending towards big projects etc keeping bank employees engaged in saving their service and their present wages and allowances.

God knows what will happen when two or three banks of different culture will merge so far as future of bank employees is concerned. But it is also sure that government will not gain in the long run as they are dreaming to gain. At most , government may come out of trouble arising due to current need of capital to comply Basel Norms . It is also certain that volume of bad debts will continue to rise and rise , cases of fraud and bad lending will go on rising and finally interest of bank employees will continue to suffer and suffer.

In the past also , RBI and Government of India have undertaken root of merger , but only to save  a sinking bank  and to get rid of public annoyance and to safeguard them from exposure in public domain. When management of a bank got exposed in bad lending and lost huge volume of capital , such banks used to be merged with some stronger bank so that politicians and officials of RBI as also Government could not be abused of failure in handling of banks even after enjoying full powers and even after carrying out so called audit and inspection.

In current year too , financial health of United Bank, Allahabad bank and Central bank exposed and very soon that of SBI , PNB and other so called stronger banks will be exposed if government do not stick to merger policy. But in no way merger of banks will prove beneficial in the long run . It is simply a temporary solution to come out of mess created by banks in span of two decades of so called reformation. Merger presently in pipeline will further add fuel to fire and health of bank will further deteriorate because no change is likely to take place in culture of recruitment, culture of promotions, culture of lending, culture of write off, culture of political exploitation and finally in legal and administrative set up in the country which have jointly made the life of bankers miserable.


Expect turbulence with public sector bank mergers-Business Standard
The resistance from bank staff and employees' unions and local political interest could pose a formidable challenge
The government-driven exercise to consolidate public sector banks (PSBs) is likely to run into problems. Beside issues with organisation integration, there is strong opposition from employee unions.

While mergers take care of accounting, legal and regulatory requirements, the banks face challenges of wages and compensation fitment, culture and systems and info technology platform integration, said experts and senior PSB executives.

And, the resistance from bank staff and employees unions and local political interest could pose a formidable challenge. C H Venkatachalam, general secretary, All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), said there is absolutely no case for consolidation. There is enough space for many banks to do business when half the population is yet come under the ambit of financial services, he said.

Adding that the unions will begin agitations against the move to merge some state-run banks with other larger ones. AIBEA will prepare detailed plans in early August, he said.

Earlier, mergers of commercial banks with public sector lenders was predominantly done at the behest of the Reserve Bank of India and the government. This was mainly to salvage a troubled bank and protect depositors’ interest. One prominent example of a private lender being merged into a state-owned bank was of the new-generation Global Trust Bank (GTB) with Oriental Bank of India. Hyderabad-based GTB landed in trouble due to aggressive lending often flouting prudential norms.

A second example is of United Western Bank (UWB), an older generation private bank, merged with IDBI Bank. UWB faced problems with a mounting bad loan book and maintaining the prescribed capital adequacy. It was thought that its wide network in the semi-urban and rural parts of Maharashtra would provide IDBI a footprint in building priority sector loans. The latter has had limited success in doing so.

Compared to mergers with PSBs, experts believe those of private sector banks, done more voluntarily, have been smoother. Shinjini Kumar, executive director, PwC, says when two lenders from the same sector are merged, there is an advantage.

"The upside in such cases is that both the parties will have a similar background, focus and structure. Therefore, the consolidation process is a little easier. However, any merger requires a very detailed plan and every merger has some or the other hiccup," he added.

HDFC Bank's merger with Times Bank was smooth. To ensure this, an external human resource consultancy was hired to manage the people integration. ICICI Bank's merger with Bank of Rajasthan also had not met with many obstacles. BoR's acquisition helped ICICI strengthen its network in western and northern India. BOR was under the Reserve Bank of India's and the Securities & Exchange Board of India's scanner at the time and the merger was a bailout for it

Link Business Standard




Bank staff body lists 406 bad loan a/c worth Rs 70k cr
AIBEA also demanded the government release the list of major loan defaulters and make recovery norms stringent
The All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) has released the details of 406 bad loan accounts with public sector banks. These 406 loans account for non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 70,300 crore.

"The total NPA in public-sector banks till September, 2013, was Rs 2.36 lakh crore. The bad loans restructured and shown as good loans amount to another Rs 3.25 lakh crore. This is public money and it has to be recovered for the benefit of the public," AIBEA General- Secretary C H Venkatachalam told reporters while releasing the list of defaulters here on Tuesday.

Venkatachalam said the NPAs registered by all public sector banks in March 2008 was Rs 39,000 crore. The bad loans constituted by the top four defaulters in public sector banks is around Rs 23,000 crore and the bad loans in top-30 bad loan accounts in 24 banks is Rs 70,300 crore. Fresh bad loans in public sector banks in the last seven years is Rs 4.95 lakh crore.

According to AIBEA, bad loans written off in the past 13 years come to the tune of Rs 2.04 lakh crore. Profits transferred and adjusted for provisions toward bad loans from 2008 to 2013 was Rs 1.40 lakh crore. The bad loans in 172 corporate accounts of Rs 100 crore or above was Rs 37,000 crore, it added.

AIBEA also demanded that the government release the list of major loan defaulters and make loan-recovery norms stringent so that action under criminal procedure can be taken against wilful defaulters.

If top bank executives are responsible for the increase in NPA, then there should be investigation against them and, if found guilty, they should be punished, the Association said.

According to Venkatachalam, political as well as corporate nexus was also a reason behind the increase in NPAs. Almost 65 per cent of the total bad loan is taken by industry, he added.

He said AIBEA would publish a larger list of about 3,000 bad loan accounts that have defaulted Rs 1 crore and above each. The Association also mulls protesting in front of the defaulted firms and publishing their names in public places.

Last year, AIBEA had released a list of the top-50 bad loan accounts. It had observed an All India Demands Day to highlight the issue on December 5, 2013. The Association has about 500,000 bank employees as members.

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