All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) have issued a call for a demonstration against the problems that various banks and their employees are facing due to demonetisation.
The union will hold demonstrations on 28 December, followed by the addressing of a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on 29 December, the two bank unions said. The union members also plan to demonstrate over the issue on 2 and 3 January 2017.
AIBEA General Secretary CH Venkatchalam and his AIBOA counterpart S Nagrajan in a statement issued on Tuesday said:
As per the call of our organisations, already our units have undertaken the programme of demonstrations in all major centres and met the local executives of RBI to hand over our memorandum.
The unions have demanded that the RBI ensure supply of adequate cash to all banks and branches, restore all ATMs without further delay, and ensure transparency in cash supply to banks.
If RBI is not able to supply adequate cash to banks, then decision should be taken to suspend cash transactions in the bank branches till sufficient cash is supplied to banks.
They also demanded a CBI inquiry into the seizures of huge numbers of new currency notes with some big persons when the bank branches are cash-starved.
The unions further demanded compensation to the families of the people and bank staff who lost their lives recently due to demonetisation.
The statement asked RBI and state governments to ensure safety and protection of bank employees and officers by maintaining law and order in all branches to prevent harassment of the staff.
They also want proper compensation to employees and officers for their extra work/late sittings done in the last month or more.
Both the unions claim to have over 5.50 lakh members out of the nearly 9 lakh bank employees in the country.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)