The transfer of 3,300 employees in violation of the Bipartite Settlement has led to the five unions of the Central Bank of India calling a two-day strike.
The said Settlement allows for transfer of bank employees only if there is an excess of staff at a particular station and a shortage elsewhere that can be fulfilled by transfer of employees. Otherwise, only transfer from one branch to the other within the same station is allowed.
However, in April this year, 3,300 employees were transferred to other stations, which the unions claim was an illegal act that violated the Settlement and the Industrial Disputes Act.
Since the issue wasn’t sorted out and the transfers were not held back despite the labour commissioner and the assistant labour commissioner advising the Central Bank management to do so, the United Forum of Bank Unions called for a strike on 30 and 31 May 2022.
However, a week before the scheduled strike, at a meeting of the Bank management and deputy chief labour commissioner, the management had decided to re-transfer employees, provided they made a representation.
A little less than a thousand employees, including a couple of hundred women employees had made their representations. However, the management has failed to follow through on its commitment even after three months.
Therefore, the five unions in the Central Bank have gone ahead and called for a strike on 19 and 20 September 2022. Of course, their demand is that the violations be corrected and the transferred employees be re-transferred to their original stations.
