Look whose unions support bank strikes

a total strength of just around 12,000 workers, out of the total union strength of over a million workers. And most of INBOC’s workers, 10,000 of them, are concentrated in a single bank, the Bank of Baroda.

The INBOC, which also stayed away from the Wednesday strike, has decided to stay away from future strikes as well, as they feel the issues raised by the other unions were not significant. However, NCBE, another bank union affiliated to the Congress participated in the strike. While NCBE comprises mostly of clerical staff, the composition of INBOC includes mostly officers.

While bank unions are protesting against the proposed equity dilution and voluntary retirement schemes (VRS), according to INBOC sources, VRS is not compulsory but optional. Hence, the question of protesting against VRS does not arise.

INBOC is also of the opinion that dilution of government equity is vital for ensuring that banks do not collapse under the burden of bad debts. to improve the capital adequacy ratio of the banks, government dilution is a necessity.µ With the growing amount of NPAs and with the government not in a position to pump in fresh capital in the PSU banks, going to public for raising capital is the only solution. Banks have non-performing loans of around Rs 60,000 crore, and have to infuse fresh equity to meet banking norms. With the government not in a position to give them fresh equity, the only option is to raise it from the public, and that means dilution of government equity.

Interestingly, Congress joint secretary, Jairam Ramesh, appeared on a television channel on Thursday supporting the government’s move to dilute its stake in PSU banks. Jairam said that left parties were being intellectually dishonest to call this bank de-nationalisation, as the government was very clear that control of banks would remain with it. He added that while bank de-nationalisation was desirable, this certainly was not it.