Bank employees get 17% wage hike bonanza, 5-day week on cards

Bowing to the long-standing demands of Public Sector Bank (PSB) employees, the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has agreed to give a 17 per cent annual wage hike to employees of over 245 member banks after the apex body entered into an agreement with bank employees unions.

The wage hike, which will be implemented with retrospective effect from November 2022, will benefit over 756,000 bank employees across the country and banks will have to shell out around Rs 8,284 crore more every year towards the expenses, according to Moneycontrol.

The IBA and bank employees unions have also entered into an agreement to declare all Saturdays as holidays and a note has been forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for approval. At present, banks remain closed on the first and fourth Saturdays of every month.

Bank employees unions, apart from a wage hike, have been demanding a five-day work week, stressing that it will not impact their performance.

The pay revision formula was arrived at by merging dearness allowance and additional load.

According to the new wage settlement, women employees will now be entitled to avail a day of sick leave every month without producing medical certificate to that effect. In addition, an employee can encash accumulated leaves to the extent of 255 days upon retirement or in the case of death while in service.

The agreement will also benefit retired bank employees as they are set to receive a monthly ex gratia payment in addition to their monthly pension.