Guwahati: Bank Unions strike on June 27th after IBA denies to settle demands. As a result of the conciliatory meeting arranged by Chief Labour Commissioner S C Joshi yielding no resolution, the all-India bank strike scheduled for June 27 remains in effect, according to CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary of AIBEA.

"We had stated that if the Indian Bank Association (IBA) could provide a strong commitment to resolving the issues within an agreed-upon timetable, we could reconsider our agitation." However, the IBA refused to make such a guarantee. As a result, we are proceeding with our scheduled strike," Venkatachalam told a leading business publication during a conference organised by the CLC in the National Capital.

Bank unions' main demands include a 5-day work week (with all Saturdays and Sundays off), the elimination of NPS for post-April 2010 employees and officers, and the reintroduction of the previous pension system for them.

"The pending issues are things like increasing conveyance allowance for physically challenged employees, uniform banking hours in branches, improving medical insurance and staff welfare schemes, fitting ex-servicemen employees, improving pension rules as given to central government employees, special allowance in North-Eastern states, and so on," Venkatachalam said in a media interaction.

To avert a nationwide bank strike, the CLC has scheduled another meeting for June 23.