Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (HB)
Udupi, Jan 31: As a mark of support to the statewide protest, the district United Forum of Bank Unions, here staged a protest in front of Canara Bank, near Court Road in the city on Friday January 31 demanding fulfilling of various demands, including improvement in the family pension system, equal pension, wage revision and other demands like updation of pension, exemption from income tax on retirement benefits without a ceiling, merger of special allowance with basic pay, improvement in the family pension system, five-day banking, allocation of staff welfare fund based on operating profits, providing good working conditions and so on.
Addressing the protesters, Supriya, employee of NCBE, said, “We started our demands six months before 2017. Even after 28 months with 21 rounds of discussion wage revision is not done. It has been mere 2%, 6%, 8%, 12.2% and 12.5% till date. The reason given by the IBA is inflation, establishment cost, expenses and NPA. Are we the reason for all these problems? Are we responsible for NPA? Then why are we denied what we deserve?
“We have exhausted all resources under the leadership of Sanjay. The last agitation took place in January 2019. We have to face lots of problems because of this, and this is not the end. We are not only negotiating early wage revision but also improvement of service conditions such as five-day banking, regulation of working hours though it is all on paper. Today is the age of digitalization. Not only is the government behind, but all the banks are behind in digitalization. Why is there no updation of payment? When we come to family pension, family will be receiving meagre income. We will go on, and fight till we succeed.”
Shiravaraya, retired bank employee said, “We are pressurizing the central government for family pension because today’s employees are tomorrow’s retired employees. The Union government has to address the problems of retired bank employees.”
The protestors shouted slogans against the union government policies, against the finance minister and the banking system.
Various union leaders like Shashidhar Shetty of AIBOC, Ravishankar of AIBOA, Nagesh Nayak of AIBEA, Ravindra of BEFI, Nithyananda of Karnataka Bank, Balagangadhar Rao of NOBW and Ramamohan, president of the district bank employees spoke on the occasion.
Ramesh And Varadaraj of Canara Bank, Chandrakanth and Vinod Nazrath of State Bank of India, Hemanth U Kanth and Ashok Kotian of Corporation, Jayan Malpe, Ramesh, Manoj, Surekha, Vijay Acharya, Suraj and others participated in the protest. UFBU correspondent Herald D'Souza coordinated the protest.