Eight to ten lakh bank workers struck work for one day on 29th July 2016 to oppose the Central Government’s plan for merger and divestment of public sector banks. Banking operations came to a grinding halt on the 29th throughout the country as bank workers of many old generation private sector banks and foreign bank workers joined the public sector banks workers.
The strike was called by the the United Forum of Bank Unions consisting of 9 trade unions of bank employees and bank officers namely, AIBEA , AIBOC, NCBE, AIBOA, BEFI, INBEF, INBOC, NOBW and NOBO.
Bank workers have pointed out that the government’s steps to privatise and infuse private capital in Public Sector banks, Regional Rural banks and Cooperative banks, to merge and consolidate banks, to discourage priority sector lending and credit to agricultural sector, to keep pushing interest rates down and on to encourage FDI in banking sector are retrogade steps. The purpose of the strike was to show their clear opposition to these retrogade steps since they are not in the interest of the people at large.
Workers’ demands also included that the government takes stringent action to recover bad loans of the banks, publish the names of bank loan defaulters, declare willful default as criminal offense so that bad loans are not allowed to make the banks sick. All India Bank Employees Association has released the figures of bad loans of the banks, which have reached alarming levels in the recent years.
The strike was very successful and banking services were paralysed in major cities. Bank workers assembled together in many cities and towns and held rallies. In West Bengal the strike was total with 15,000 branches taking part in the strike. In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana more than 20,000 banks workers from 4000 branches took part in the strike. In Bihar 40,000 bank workers took part in the strike. In Delhi bank workers assembled in large numbers at Jantar Mantar inspite of torrential rains. There is news from the length and breadth of India of bank workers holding meetings and rallies as part of the All-India strike. In all, around a million bank workers from around 80,000 branches took part in this massive action and made the strike very successful.
Mazdoor Ekta Lehar hails the united action by the bank workers to oppose policy of privatisation of public sector banks, which is part and parcel of the anti-people and anti-social agenda of the Indian ruling bourgeois class.
