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We are in receipt of a mail sent by H.P.BHATELIA wherein he has forwarded us a letter written by him to major unions. We are
publishing this letter as we would like that bankers should ponder upon these issues. We are aware, union leaders are likely to
dismiss this as merely a wishlist and will outrightly reject saying it is not practical. Without going into the merits of this,
AllBankingSolutions.com feels it raises certain fundamental issues - constant supressing of the bankers and squeezing them to the
last limit. The worse part is that union leaders remain well seated on the sidelines and watch the affairs as a fight between Tiger
and a Goat. In between they keep on boosting the goat by saying 'donot worry we are with you'.
Respected Comrades,
"Five Day Week" is the recent hot topic in discussions among the banking fraternity. It is learnt that if the same is implemented,
the daily working hours would be increased by an hour. I had already sent my suggestions to the union for consideration before agreeing
to any increase in the daily working hours. In view of the recent developments, I again want to draw your kind attention towards the
following aspects before agreeing to any increase in the daily working hours.
1. Our wages and service conditions have largely remained comparable with those in the L.I.C. I have been suggesting since long that
our working hours should be reduced according to the working hours prevailing in the L.I.C. However, the unions have never taken up
this issue. Now, it is high time we considered this aspect while proposing 5 Day Week in banks. In L.I.C. daily working hours are
lesser by 15 minutes on Mondays to Fridays and 30 minutes on Saturdays than in banks. Moreover, there are 15 Casual Leave in L.I.C
against 12 in banks. The L.I.C. employees also get additional C.L. for such number of days as the public holidays fall short
of 23.5.
2. The public holidays in banks have been curtailed drastically in many States for the last few years without any kind of protest from
the bank unions. Right at the time of first such attempt in Gujarat I had written to the GBW Union to strongly protest the same. In Gujarat,
now there are only 15-16 bank holidays in place of around 25 prevailing since decades. And this reduction is applicable to only bank
employees, since the employees of the State Govt. etc. continue to enjoy holidays as earlier. This has in effect already increased the
working hours of the bank employees.
3. Even some more holidays falling on Saturdays are going to be lost in 5 day week besides loss of intervening Saturdays while availing
leave other than C.L.
4. On every Monday there is heavy rush on the counters and the employees have to work under tremendous pressure. When a holiday is
linked to a Sunday, the situation even worsens. Thus, the increased workload on Mondays after applying 5 day week will itself take
care of the lost hours of Saturday.
Thus, there is no need to spread the working hours of Saturday to other week days in order to introduce 5 Day Week in banks since the likely loss of working hours in Saturdays has already got compensated in various manners described above. As a matter of fact, the demand of 5 Day Week should have come from the banks since it is more beneficial to them.
Besides, it must be noted that productivity can not be increased by merely increasing daily working hours. On the other hand, longer working hours in a day reduces productivity. The refreshment of the mind and body availed by the employees in weekends will be lost by lengthy working hours on week days. Moreover, the banks have already been misutilising the freedom given to them by the unions in fixing business hours within the total working hours. There is indiscriminate increase in business hours in the name of customer service, leaving the employees to work for extended hours. The work in banks is of intensive type unlike in govt. offices where there is no instant pressure of work. Besides, practically the govt. offices with 5 Day Week enjoy extended recess hours far in excess of the scheduled timings nullifying the adverse effect of longer working hours. This can not happen in banks. It is also noteworthy that in Railways the staff deployed on intensive duty like reservation counters have lesser daily working hours than the other staff. In view of the above facts, we must secure 5 Day Week without any increase in daily working hours since the bank employees are already at disadvantage in the matter of effective/practical working hours.
Yours comradely,
H.P.BHATELIA
Dena Bank, Grain Market, JAMNAGAR.
hbhatelia@gmail.com
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