Bank employees carried out a fierce protest in capital city Raipur in support of their five points demand under the banner of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), which represents nearly 100% of bank employees. The protest was organized near the PNB Main Branch, Moti Bagh of capital city Raipur on Friday.
Bank employees' main demands are adequate recruitment in banks, implementation of a five-day banking week, resolution of pending issues, stop outsourcing of jobs, and other pending demands.
During the protest the demonstrators raised anti-establishment slogans and criticized the policies of ruling government policies and termed them anti-people. The demonstrators allegedly accused Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Seetharaman accountable for implementation of biased policies harmful to the public sector financial institutions and threatened to go on a two days national level strike from March 24-25 if their demands were not met.
Y. Gopal Krishna, Chhattisgarh State Secretary of All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC ) expressed his deep disappointment towards union government attitude towards employees working in public sector banks and said, despite there is mutual agreement on the five-days working in week in banks the Government has not implemented it even though it is already existing in other financial institutions.
The officers also highlighted that there is an urgent need for adequate recruitment in all public sector banks. He mentioned that banks are generating record profits even in that context recruitment done in the sector is quite scanty creating additional pressure on bank employees.
The other bank employees' union leader joined the protest and supported the views expressed by Krishna.
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The other bank union leaders participating in the protests are Com. Shirish Nalgondwar, Com. Suresh Bani, Com. Baljit Singh, Com. Milind Mate, Com. D.K. Sarkar, Com. Kamal Jain, Com. Nilesh Kumar Mandavi, Com. Anil Janghel, Com. Chitranjan Bhagat, Ms. Priyanka Bardhan, Ms. Swati Tawari etc
Moreover, the leaders also appealed to the Government of India to ensure the safety and security of bank employees in the light of increased attacks.