AIBOC Condemns Catholic Syrian Bank's Unilateral Decision to Reduce Retirement Age To 58; Anti-Labour Policies

Moneylife Digital Team 28 January 2019

Economy & Nation

All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) has strongly condemned management of Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB) for unilaterally reducing retirement age of its officers to 58 from the industry standard of 60 years. AIBOC also condemned the 98-year lender, now majority owned by Fairfax India Holdigs Corp, for its anti-labour policies and retrenchments.

In a statement, the apex trade union of bank officers in the country representing a membership of over 3,20,000, says, "...the Bank on 21 January 2019, by way of an internal circular, announced that the board of directors have decided to unilaterally reduce retirement age of officers to 58 years from 60 years against the industry standard retirement age of 60 years. Incidentally, the head of human resources (HR) department, who announced this decision is above 60 years and there are many executives, who have joined CSB after completing their careers from other banks are well above 60 years and this change in retirement is not made applicable for these top executives including the managing director (MD)."

Soumya Datta, general secretary of AIBOC says, "...these actions at the cost of putting the Bank on the growth trajectory, reveal that the MD & CEO somehow wants the industrial relations in the Bank to continue the way it is so that he can continue reaping many benefits by holding on to his position without any questions asked on the business front."

"These regressive measures of an MD & CEO of a Bank, if not checked by the authorities in time would tantamount to letting him take the entire Industry to ransom as AIBOC is determined to take the fight to any level against these retrograde measures and it would be only the MD & CEO of the Catholic Syrian Bank who would be squarely held responsible for the consequences," Mr Datta added.

According to the union, as a prelude to this final blow of reduction in retirement age, few weeks ago, the bank management handed out compulsory retirement to around 60 officers citing non-performance. However, many officers on this list had received good scores in the performance appraisal. "Thus, the game plan to terrorise the officer community is really visible and AIBOC strongly objects to such draconian measures, which are inimical to the interest of the institution and as well as employees declares that these moves would not be allowed to succeed in the Indian banking industry," it added.

Warning that such unrest and unwarranted provocations do not do not augur well for that Bank and would set a bad precedent for the Indian banking industry, the bank officer's union appealed to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Government to intervene immediately and set the house in order in Catholic Syrian Bank.

AIBOC has called for a 'maha morcha' against anti-employee attitude of Catholic Syrian Bank on 4 February 2019 in Delhi.

Catholic Syrian Bank is the first bank in history where 51% holding through foreign direct investmetn (FDI) was permitted. As a result, Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa-owned Fairfax India Holdings Corp holds 51% stake in the 98-year-old Bank. The hope that the entry of Fairfax Capital would set professionalism into the bank was spurned with the management cutting retirement age of officers to 58 years, the AIBOC stated.

Comments

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Satyanarayan Behera

7 years ago

Due to computerisation in the banking industries, the management of various banks in India do not need human labour and instead depend upon artificial inteliigence. Thy want to get rid of human work force and to utilse the service of mechanisations. In this way, the labour force of the banking industries dwindling rapidly and the union of banks which supposed to fight for the welfare of the workmen and officers of banking industies have no say due to trimming of its members. Managements have upper hand in any arbitarary decision and the union remain only as a paper tiger.