PSU bank employees on strike, private banks remain open

Employee unions of public sector banks went on a nationwide strike on Wednesday to press for wage revision, affecting banking services like cheque clearance and withdrawal from branches across India.

However, branches of private sector banks like ICICI and HDFC remained open. At the same time, most of the ATMs of all banks were functioning normally, as per initial reports.

 "Strike is complete and total. This strike has been forced upon us as bank management did not yield to our scaled down demands," United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) Convener M V Murali told PTI.

Banks, including the country's largest one State Bank of India (SBI), have already informed customers about the inconvenience they are likely to face.

"UFBU has given a notice to IBA calling for nationwide bank strike on November 12 and All-India State Bank Officers' Federation and All-India State Bank of India Staff Federation being a part of UFBU will also participate in the said strike," SBI had said in a statement.

"Since the said call is given at all-India level covering all banks, the bank will not be impacted separately," the statement said.

The staff of public sector banks had gone on a nationwide strike for two days beginning February 10 after discussions with the IBA failed.

The wage revision of public sector bank employees has been due since November 2012.

The UFBU is an umbrella organisation of nine bank employees and officer unions.

There are 27 public sector banks in the country with a combined employee strength of about 8 lakh. There are about 50,000 branches of these banks across the country.