Mumbai: Financial services may be hit today as 13 lakh employees from the public, private and foreign banks are joining the nationwide strike called by trade unions to protest the “anti-labour” policies of the Modi government.
“Around 13 lakh employees and officers from 25 public sector banks, 11 private sector banks and nine foreign banks will be on strike tomorrow,” All-India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) said.
Besides these banks, employees from 56 regional rural banks, 650 co-operative banks, the Reserve Bank, Nabard and Sidbi will also be on strike.
In all, 14 unions representing bank employees and officers will be supporting the day-long stir called by 10 central trade unions.
Bank unions are also protesting against the government's plan to revamp the working of the public sector banks.
“We will fight against the government's backdoor attempts to hand over public sector to corporates,” they said.
The trade unions have given the strike call over a 12-point charter of demands, including withdrawal of the proposed “anti-worker” amendments in labour laws and stopping the disinvestment and privatisation of PSUs.
These unions have already struck work three times since 2010, the last being for two days in February 2013.
While 10 central unions claim to have a combined membership of 15 crore workers, several outfits representing informal sector workers have also supported the shutdown.
Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, however, said in New Delhi that he expects the impact to be minimal.
“I don't think essential services will be affected by the strike. I feel that the impact will not be much.”
Union leaders, however, said the strike will affect the functioning of essential services like banking, transport and supply of power, gas and oil.
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