Mumbai:
The Indian Banks'' Association (IBA) on Wednesday announced the conclusion of the 11th Bipartite Wage Negotiations with bank unions and officers'' associations.
After three years of intense negotiations, bank employees'' unions and IBA, on July 22, had entered into a memorandum of understanding for an annual wage hike of 15 per cent.
The wage negotiation covered 29 banks — 12 public sector banks, 10 private banks, and seven foreign banks — and 500,000 employees in the banking sector.
A joint statement by the four unions representing the workmen said for the first time, there will be uniform basic, dearness allowance, house rent allowance (HRA), special allowance, and transport allowance. The HRA rate will be 10.5 per cent on pay across the country.
“The Indian Banks'' Association is pleased to announce the conclusion of 11th Bipartite Wage Negotiations with bank unions and associations to be effective from November 1, 2017. The agreement reached today, provides for a 15 per cent increase in pay slip,” IBA chief executive Sunil Mehta said in a statement.
A detailed bipartite settlement/joint note has been signed with United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), representing four Workmen Unions and four Officers'' Associations and also Bank Karamchari Sena Mahasangh (BKSM), who were parties to agreement, the statement said.
The new wage revision would entail an additional yearly outgo of Rs 7,898 crore for the banks.Of this, Rs 3,385 crore is for non-officers; the rest for officers. The wage agreement is for the period between November 2017 and October 2022.“All accumulated increments during this period shall be released with effect from November 11," said a statement issued by the officers’ union.
IBA further said to inculcate a sense of competition and also to reward the performance, the concept of Performance Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme has been introduced for the first time. The scheme will be effective from the current fiscal.
The PLI scheme in public sector banks will be based on operating profit/net profit of the individual bank. It is optional for private and foreign banks.
The 10th Bipartite Settlement ended in October 2017. In the wage settlement, which was signed in May 2015, for the period between November 2012 and October 2017, the IBA had offered a 15 per cent hike.
Employees were mainly demanding three things — wages on a par with central pay commission, five-day working week, and updation of family pension.