 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us here Mr. Thomas Franco, General Secretary of All India Bank Officers' Confederation. Public sector bank employees and officers have given a call for strike on August 22. Mr. Franco today will tell us what are the reasons why they have called for a strike and what are the demands of its employees and officers. Welcome to NewsClick, Mr. Franco. Can you tell us the reason why the employees and officers have called for a strike on August 22? General Bank Bank employees and officers are going to be on strike on 22nd August 2017 for a common cause, for a national cause, for a noble cause. None of the demands are related to our own benefits, our own wages or our own service conditions. We are worried about the moves of the government and the Reserve Bank of India, which is now oriented towards privatization of the public sector. Every now and then statements are being made that there is need for re-privatization, there is no capital to provide for public sector banks, which was provided more than 300% of return to the government of India in the form of dividend and taxes. Then there is talk about merger of public sector banks. The merger of State Bank of India with its associate banks itself has created a lot of problems. Before assessing the plus and minus of it, already they are talking about merging more banks, which we see as a step towards further privatization of public sector banks. Similarly, in the case of corporate NPS, the non-performing assets, there is not much effort to recover the loans. For example, the total accounts which are referred to the national company law tribunal already banks have been asked to create a provision of 50% this year and another 50% next year. That means the entire loans are likely to be written off. Otherwise, why you create 100% provision for this loan? These assets should be seized. The individual board of directors should be made accountable and we are demanding that in the case of willful defaulters, they should be declared as criminals and procedure documents. We are also demanding that there should be accountability for the top officials who have taken the decision for the corporate loans which have gone bad, including the representatives of the finance ministry as well as RBI who are in the boards of this bank as recommended by the parliamentary standing committee. Now, the government has introduced a bill in the parliament called financial resolution and deposit insurance bill, which has absolute power more than even the Reserve Bank of India to even liquidate the public sector banks and State Bank of India as well as LAC. This is a draconian bill which we are strongly opposed to, so that is another issue related to this strike. There is a bank support bureau, which is an unconstitutional body, which is interfering into every aspect of banking. We are demanding that that should be abolished and now off late the banks have started increasing the service charges for the customers to compensate for the losses they have made due to the NPA as well as demonetization. We are demanding that the customers should not be affected that way and the burden of NPA should not be shifted to the good customers. Service charges have to be less for common man. The service charges can be more for affluence society, but that is not happening. That is another issue we are taking up in this strike. The cost of demonetization amounts to crores of money, which the public sector banks have spent, which was not warranted. Now the government which announced this demonetization or the Reserve Bank of India, they should reimburse the cost of demonetization. Why the banks should be put on the burden when the banks are not able to get the capital from the government of India as it should. At least the government should reimburse the cost of expenditure they have incurred, that is not being done. Similarly, during the demonetization for 52 days minimum, people have worked day and night in the to help the government to tide over the crisis. Now even after so many months, no compensation has been paid to majority of them for the amount of hard work they have done. That is another thing the government should insist on the banks to do. And one more important issue is that there is a provision in the nationalization act as well as State Bank of India Act, which provides for an officer director and an employee director in every public sector bank's board. This is with a view to bringing in transparency, accountability and also participatory management. But after this government took over, except for one case which was done immediately after the government took over, there is no reappointment or appointment of board of directors who are representing the officer director and the employee director. So the government has made the boards totally opaque. What is happening within the boards is not even brought out or known to the employees or the officers. This is against what is preached as transparency. Then comes to the issue of compassionate appointment in the case of death of an employee or an officer. The government should implement or make the IBA and the banks to implement a scheme where the family which is in distress, they should be given an opportunity to have a compassionate appointment. That is also not being implemented uniformly. Grativity acts as to be amended. At far with what is available to the central government pensioners whose pension has been revised, whose gratuity has been revised from 11 2016. We have been pleading with the government, with the finance ministry, with the labor ministry, till now that act has not been amended. So a lot of people who are retiring are also getting affected. There are some issues related to the retired officers, retired employees regarding the superannuation. There should be a pension benefit which would be similar to the central government employees is what we are demanding. This is a long pending issue and even Supreme courts have cleared that there should be an equality in pension. After becoming a pensioner you are all same, your expenditures are same, your medical expenditures are common, so there should be a similarity. That is another issue we are demanding in this strike. Lastly we are demanding adequate recruitment. We want the financial inclusion to reach every nook and corner of the country. For that we require that the employment opportunities in this country are stringy. In the banking sector there is a huge shortage of officers and employees. So we are demanding that recruit adequate people. Recruit adequate people with knowledge like agriculture as a means so that they can help the banking sector to serve the larger majority of the nation. The citizens of the country require better services for which you require more people. So our last demand in this strike notice is that adequate recruitment of people should take. In this we are appealing to the people. We are appealing to every section of the society that stand by these bank officers and employees who are not fighting for their own benefit but fighting for the larger interests of the country. Sacrificing one day salary. Strike means loss of one day salary. In spite of that we have declared a strike. We have gone on notice. We participated in the reconciliation meetings but the government has not given any concrete assurance forcing us to go on this strike. So we appeal to each one of you to be with us supporters in this common cause and support our fight for the benefit of this country. Thank you.