Bank employee unions have called a nationwide strike for January 27 to press a long-pending demand for a five-day workweek. The strike was announced on January 23, and if it goes as planned, it would be a major disruption to public sector banking.
Most public sector banks have already informed their customers about disruptions to banking services if the strike materialises.
Why January 27 strike may cause large disruption
- The potential January 27 strike will be a bigger disruption to public sector banking operations, as banks will be closed for three consecutive days.
- This is due to January 25 and 26 being holidays on account of being Sunday and Republic Day, respectively.
- The bank employees want a uniform five-day work week. Currently, they second and fourth Saturdays off, while working six days a week for the rest of the month.
- The strike may not affect operations at branches of big private-sector banks such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine unions of officers and employees, said in a statement that it is going ahead with the strike as its meetings with the chief labour commissioner held on Wednesday and Thursday bore no results.
The UFBU is an umbrella organisation of nine major bank unions in India, representing employees and officers across public sector banks and some old generation private banks.
Five-day demand, explained
The decision to declare all Saturdays as holidays was reached by the Indian Banks’ Association and UFBU during the wage revision settlement in March 2024.
“It is unfortunate that the government is not responding to our genuine demand. There would be no loss of man-hours as we have agreed to work an extra 40 minutes daily from Monday to Friday,” UFBU had said earlier this month.
The UFBU noted that the RBI, LIC, GIC, stock exchanges, and government offices already follow a five-day workweek, arguing there was no justification for banks to lag behind.