There’s a warning from the United Forum of Reserve Bank Officers and Employees!
It has signalled for a mass agitation if the salary settlement problem is not resolved quickly. The plan includes mass casual leave for all staff coming under current wage settlements on November 30, 2021.
The Wage Agreement
So the agreement is done every five years through negotiations between management and labour unions for Wages for RBI employees. Since November 2017, the current round of salary revisions has been pending.
“Our patience is wearing thin, you will please appreciate. Our members are very restive and are in a highly agitated mood,”
United Forum office-bearers in a letter to RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on November 12.
“We, as their accredited representatives, are, therefore, constrained to call upon our members to mobilize themselves and express their grievances appropriately, in an organized and disciplined manner, including cessation of work through Mass Casual Leave, which we sincerely tried to avoid but an inordinate delay on Bank’s part on such a very sensitive matter compels us,”
The letter said.
Reason For AIRBEA Leader’s Agitation
The agitation has a reason, firstly the All India Reserve Bank Employees Association has been asked to travel to Mumbai on September 22, 2021.
According to the union, the physical meeting with the RBI’s was supposed to be in the presence of the Executive Director in charge of Administration.
From various centres, AIRBEA leaders were invited to Mumbai and these leaders were expecting to get the RBI’s draft settlement on September 24, 2021, but due to some constraints bank couldn’t give the draft.
“In the evening we were informed by the HRMD (Human Resource Management Department) officials that because of some constraints, Bank was not enabled to give us the draft and we were asked to come on Monday, the 27th September 2021,” the officials said, adding due to this, about twenty-five AIRBEA representatives had to prolong their stay in Mumbai in anticipation of the draft.
The Union officials said.
But on September 27, “after an agonizing wait for the whole day, we were told in the evening that Bank was not able to give us the draft, neither was HRMD in a position to state when that could be given and suggested that instead of waiting in Mumbai we could go back to respective centres,”
The union officials said.
“Such a situation never arose in the history of bipartite settlement in the Bank from 1970 onwards. We are extremely agitated”
Says the letter.