TOP 10 DEVELOPMENTS ABOUT THE STRIKE

1. The bank employee unions had rejected the Indian Banks Association's (IBA) offer of a 10 per cent wage hike during a conciliation meeting held on February 6 with the Chief Labour Commissioner. The IBA is a body that represents managements of banks. The offer made by bank managements was not in line with rising inflation, General Secretary of National Organisation of Bank Workers Ashwini Rana said.
2. The IBA on its part said that the banks could not afford to a wage revision beyond 10 per cent due to growing non-performing assets in the their balance sheet coupled with provisioning of pension liability, according to a statement on the website of All India Bank Officers Association.
3. The 10 per cent hike in wages would have cost the banks nearly Rs. 3,000 crore. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, speaking at the 78th foundation day of Indian Overseas Bank, said, "It cannot be that all profits are used to declare dividend and to provide enhanced wages and allowances to bank employees." A significant part of retained earnings must be used to infuse additional capital, otherwise banks will not find the amount of capital that is required over the next 5, 10, 20 years, he said.
4. The employee unions of public sector banks are demanding for a nearly 30 per cent increase in wages.
5. The All India Bank Officers Association also called for "regulated working hours for officers, 5 days a week and compassionate ground appointment", according to a statement on its website.
6. The wage revision of public sector bank employees has been due since November 2012.
7. The staff of public sector banks had earlier gone on a nationwide strike for a day, on December 18, instead of proposed two days, after discussions on wages with the IBA had failed. The bank unions had cited forward movement in the wage talks for deferring the "48 hours strike" to 20th and 21st January 2014.
8. Despite eight round of talks between bank employee unions and IBA to break the impasse and the strike was subsequently deferred to 10th and 11th February 2014.
9. There are 27 public sector banks in the country with a combined employee strength of about 8 lakh and network of about 50,000 branches across the country.
10. Operations in private sector banks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank were functioning normally because their staff are not on strike. (With Agency Inputs)
    
    Source: NDTV PROFIT