11th BPS Settlement Meeting Tomorrow on 20 August 2020

11th Bipartite Wage Revision Talks Latest News – 11th BPS Settlement Meeting with IBA Tomorrow on 20 August 2020

As per the latest circular issued by the Indian Banks’ Association (HR & Industraial Relations), meeting with working group for Workmen will be held at 11.00 am on 20th August 2020.

Shri C.H. Venkatachalam AIBEA
Shri Sanjeev K. Bandlish NCBE
Shri Subhash S. Sawant INBEF
Shri Upendra Kumar NOBW

Bipartite Talks with IBA on 28th August 2020

Further to the signing of MoU on 22-7-2020, IBA set up two separate Working Groups for workmen employees and officers respectively to discuss and finalise the distribution of the agreed cost into various payslip components so that the full-fledged Settlement can be signed at the earliest.

A preliminary round of the meeting of the Working Group for Workmen was held on 20th August, 2020 through virtual mode. IBA was represented by Chairman of the Working Group Shri Rakesh Sharma (MD&CEO, IDBI Bank), Shri S K Kakkar, Sr. Advisory-HRA, IBA and other members of this Small Committee.

From our side, we were represented by the General Secretaries of our four organisatioon.

Since BEFI did not sign the MoU, IBA did not invite them to be part of this Small Working Group.

Today, a meeting of this Working Group was held in Mumbai in IBA’s office. Our 4 organisations attended the meeting.
Gist of discussions:

Out of Rs. 7808 crores (15%) of total amount agreed in the MOU for employees and officers put together, the amount apportionable for workmen employees would be Rs. 3385 crores.
Out of this, Rs. 495 crores would be towards Pay + DA and balance Rs. 2890 crores would be distributed to other components.
Tentative proposals on new Payscales were discussed and the same would be finalised in the next round of meeting.

The issue of dispensing with the Graduation increment and constructing the clerical payscales accordingly was discussed but not yet finalised.
DA rates from November, 2017 would be 0.07% per slab of 4 points of quarterly average increase over 6352 points.

We took up the improvement in periodicity i.e sanction of all stagnation increment every two years for clerical cadre like substaff. Issue will be further discussed and finalised
Issue of grant of one more stagnation increment and also

Some discussions took place on Special Pay, Special Allowance, etc. but it was decided that the same would be finalised after finalising the payscales.
Further discussions will be held in the next round of meeting to be held shortly.

Letter to 4 Workmen Unions on Meeting of Working Groups

A meeting of the Working Group for Workmen is slated tomorrow at Mumbai. As we did not sign the MoU on 22nd July 2020, IBA will not invite us for further discussion was a known outcome. We all know another meeting of the Working Group for Workmen was held on 20th of this month. Meeting of the unions before the negotiation for distribution has been a practice followed till 10th Bipartite Settlement. BEFI was not consulted before any of the meetings. We did not sign the MoU for reasons explained unambiguously. The issues require to be discussed during the distribution have been identified during meetings of the small committee as well as full negotiating committee. On most of the issues IBA agreed to discuss during the distribution of quantum.

We addressed a letter to the General Secretaries of four Workmen Unions/Associations narrating our views on the subject matters.

Text of the letter is appended below.

TEXT OF THE LETTER TO THE GENERAL SECRETARIES OF WORKMEN UNIONS

“We are aware that a meeting of the Working Group for Workmen was held on 20th of this month and another is slated to be held tomorrow, 28th August 2020.

As we all know, it had been practice to hold meeting of the unions prior to the negotiation for distribution of quantum to arrive at a common position. The meeting of tomorrow is going to be held physically at Mumbai and there has not been any intimation so far for holding meeting of workmen Unions, it won’t be possible for the undersigned to attend a Meeting at Mumbai even if it is decided now.

Moreover, we have already expressed our views on the MoU in a letter addressed to UFBU Convener on 25th of this month with copy marked to all constituents.

In this backdrop we would like to place our suggestions based on Common Charter of Demands and discussion held so far in Small Committee and Full Negotiation Committee meetings of which BEFI was an integral part.