Banks agree to increase employees’ salary by 17%; IBA recommends Saturday as public holiday

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The negotiating committee of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and Bank Officers’ Associations and workmen employees unions signed an agreement for a 17 per cent increase in salary revision, translating into a collective outgo of ₹12,589 crore for 12 public sector banks (PSBs) which are party to the 12th industry-wide bipartite wage settlement.

Banks have already started making provisions since the beginning of the first quarter of FY24 for the salary revision. The outgo for PSBs on account of wage revision for officers’ and workmen is ₹8,424 crore and ₹4,165 crore, respectively.

Per the 9th joint note, which will remain in force for five years from November 1, 2022, in terms of the December 7, 2023, IBA and the associations have reached an understanding for declaration of all Saturdays as public holidays under the Negotiable Instruments Act for the banking industry. And, IBA has accordingly recommended to the government for the same.

According to the note, the due changes in the working hours will be effective after necessary approvals and clearances from the Centre and Reserve Bank of India.

Staff Welfare Scheme

The note further said that in view of contingencies where some employees get affected with major ailments such as cancer, cerebral stroke, paralysis, organ transplantation, liver disease, kidney failure, etc., or on account of major accidents, it has been agreed in-principle to evolve a staff welfare scheme under which provision would be made for voluntary encashment of privilege leave and the monetised value of such leave would be pooled under a leave bank system.

Out of this special leave bank, special leave would be sanctioned to the employees affected by such contingencies.

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A joint note by the workmen unions said that employees will be granted bereavement leave on the demise of the family members (spouse, children, parents and parents-in law), with the number of days of such leave being decided by each bank at their level.

Besides 12 PSBs, 10 private sector banks are part of the wage settlement. The settlement is applicable to officers’ (who are on IBA scale) of Federal Bank, Karnataka Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IDBI Bank (up to Scale III), South Indian Bank (up to Scale IV), and Jammu & Kashmir Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, RBL Bank, Nainital Bank and Dhanlaxmi Bank.

In the case of workmen, the wage settlement would be applicable to the employees of the aforementioned banks and three foreign banks—Citibank N.A., HSBC, and Standard Chartered Bank