Charter of Demands of Award Staff on Other Allowances

Charter of Demands for 11^th Bipartite Settlement - Other than Pay & Allowances

REGULATION OF WORKING HOURS

1.    Working Hours shall not exceed 40 hours per week and 8 hours per day (which does not include lunch break of 30 minutes duration).

2.    All Saturdays will be holidays. In other words, banks will work only on 5 days in a week.

3.    All double sessional offices must be converted into single sessional offices in phases.

4.    In case of bigger cities – ‘A’ Class cities and Metros – banks may have staggering business hours.  They may start functioning between 8-00 AM and 10-30 AM and will have customer transactions for not less than 5 hours a day.

5.    Including pre-lunch and post-lunch business hours and lunch interval, the total number of hours a staff is required to be physically present at the branch/office and on outside duty shall never exceed 9 hours a day.

6.   If a staff member (Award Staff/Officer) is made to work beyond the stipulated time, additional amount of compensation calculated in a fair, reasonable and equitable manner must be paid in cash.

7.    In case many staff members are advised to sit late quite often, it must be recorded. 

8.    If staff members are required to work for late hours on a regular basis, arrangements must be made to notify and fill the additional vacancies of permanent nature within 6 months period.

9.    Staggering of duty hours may be effected with 15 days advance notice to the staff concerned.

10.    Any changes in the daily working schedule shall be through written office order only.  Oral instructions issued in this regard will not bind the staff concerned.

11.   There shall be fair play, non-partisan behavior and transparency on the part of the branch head/immediate superior in every staff-related issue.

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

1.  ‘5 day week’ is to be implemented within a specific time frame, but not exceeding 6 months from the date of the settlement.

2.  Number of Public Holidays under N.I. Act at present varies from state to state.  It is proposed to fix it at 8 (Eight) uniformly throughout the country.

3.  In addition, 4 optional/restricted holidays on notified festival days (national/state/local) may be given. 

4.  However, this is subject to the proviso that more than 1 optional/restricted holiday cannot be allowed to a person, in a month.   Rules governing Casual Leave will apply to ‘optional/restricted holidays’ too.

5.  No staff must be forced to work for more than 7 calendar days continuously, under any circumstances.

6.  In case a staff member is forced to work on a Sunday/Public Holiday, compensatory off must be given within 30 days.  This is in addition to the monetary compensation payable.

LEAVE PROVISIONS

1.   Casual Leave up to 1 day shall be permitted to be availed without prior sanction.  Nonetheless, prior intimation is needed.  Prior intimation may be through email and also SMS to the mobile phone of the leave sanctioning authority.

2.   Sick Leave not availed at the end of each year will be credited to the Privilege Leave account automatically, without the staff asking for it.

3.   Privilege Leave must be allowed to be accumulated up to 300 days.

4.   Privilege Leave accumulated above the maximum of 300 days must be allowed to be encashed, without linking it to L.F.C (availment/encashment).

5.   At the time of retirement, encashment of PL up to 300 days is to be allowed and it is to be totally tax free, on the lines of the same facility available for central government employees.

6.   For this purpose, superannuation or VRS under pension regulations after putting in a minimum service of 20 years shall be treated alike.

HEALTH

7.   Health Insurance premium for the serving personnel aged 50 years and above must be borne by the individual banks.  Ceiling for each staff will depend on his/her rank/grade.

8.   No upfront payment must be demanded at the time of treatment. It must be 100% ‘cashless treatment’ in its true sense.  No sub-limits must be stipulated.

9.   Even for out-patient treatment, tie-up with good hospitals nationwide must be established for the staff in service and also those who have retired.

10.   For all retired personnel – retired on superannuation, VRS or CRS – health insurance premium must be remitted by the banks in which they served.

LOANS ON CONCESSIONAL RATES OF INTEREST

11.   For staff children, rate of interest on education loans must be brought down uniformly to 6% p.a. up to the priority sector ceiling.  Beyond that level, 3% extra interest may be collected.  The entire interest payable on Education Loans must be simple, till the originally fixed due date of the loan.

12.   Interest on Vehicle Loans shall not exceed Base Rate minus 1% (Simple).

13.   Interest on Staff Housing Loans must be 6% p.a. (simple).

14.   After the housing loan is fully repaid, second housing loan may be given, provided at least two thirds of the first housing loan repayment period has elapsed.  Another condition is the amount of first and second housing loans put together shall not exceed Rs.30 Lakhs for Sub-staff, Rs.40 Lakhs for Clerks and Rs.50 Lakhs for Officers.

15.   Repayment period for different loans may be fixed as follows:

(a)  Vehicle Loan – 2 Wheeler – 84 months or until the date of retirement whichever is earlier.

(b)  Vehicle Loan – 4 Wheeler – 180 months or until the date of retirement whichever is earlier.

(c)  Housing Loan – 300 Months or until the staff attains 70 years of age whichever is earlier.

(d)  Staff Children’s Education Loan – 60 months for inland studies and 96 months for studies abroad, excluding the period of study and gestation.

(e)  If the interest on education loans of staff children is serviced during the period of moratorium, a further concession of 0.5% p.a. in the interest is to be allowed.

TRANSFERS

16.  Transfer shall ever used as a weapon to threaten the staff and to punish the honest and dedicated staff, due to ego conflicts or any other inexplicable reasons (vague reasons like ‘exigencies of service’ or ‘transfer is the prerogative of the management’ etc.).

17.  Sub-staff can be transferred every 10 years, provided the distance between their place of domicile and the new place of posting is not more than 200 KMs in the same linguistic area.

18.  Clerical staff can be transferred every 10 years provided the distance between their place of domicile and the new place of posting is not more than 300 KMs in the same linguistic area.

19.  But any transfer exercise must be a regular one, not restricted to a particular area/Zone and a select few individuals. This condition will not apply to transfers made on the grounds of major misconduct like frauds, financial impropriety etc. 

20.  However, if the charges made cannot be proved within 12 months, the transfer made will become null and void and the management is duty bound to transfer the employee/officer to his previous place of work, immediately on the expiry of 12 months.  For this, no written request from the staff concerned is required to be obtained.

21.  All periodical transfers including the promotion related ones must be completed by 15^th  May, every year.  To facilitate this, the general transfer exercise must commence in February itself and the orders are to be released in the 3^rd week of April.

22.   Annual transfer exercise must be completed between April and June of every year at any cost.  A transfer process is said to be complete, when releasing of orders, relieving and the staff concerned reporting at the new place are all over within 90 days from the date of the transfer order.

23.  Any transfer order kept in abeyance for more than 6 months will get cancelled automatically.

24.  Request transfers can be considered only once in 10 years and a maximum of only 4 request transfers in the entire career in the bank will be entertained.

25.  All transfer requests must be properly recorded and individual staff members must be notified on their waiting list serial number and it must be displayed in the individual banks’ portals too.

26.  Regular updation of this wait list must be done in the banks’ portals every quarter.

27.  A person shall not be transferred from one place before he/she completes 3 years. For local transfers within 20 KMs distance, this period of minimum stay is kept at 1 year.  However, this condition will not apply to staff involved in frauds and other criminal activities.

28.  Similarly, a staff member shall not be transferred more than 10 times in his/her entire career in the bank.  This condition is sought to be introduced to provide adequate protection to staff from the possible onslaught of the management and to provide relief and comfort to the family of the staff.

29.  However, this rule will not apply to officers in SMGS V and above. In their case, the maximum number of transfers is kept at 15 in the entire career with an assured term of  1 year at one place/post.

30.  A person shall not be transferred merely on a complaint from a customer.  In such circumstances, an open house enquiry must be conducted and its proceedings recorded properly.  Other staff of the same branch/office also must participate in that enquiry and their submissions are to be recorded too.  If necessary, the version of important and long standing customers may be taken on record, to arrive at the truth.

31.  An officer shall not be retained in the same linguistic area for more than 30 years, even with breaks. The main objective is to encourage the officers to go and work in other linguistic areas.

PROMOTION

32.  Promotion shall be a totally transparent exercise.  The promotion test must be conducted on line and the results must be out within 30 minutes.

33.  Ideally, the promotion exercise must start in January every year and will end in April.

34.  At every stage of the screening process, marks and ranks of every individual candidate must be displayed in the respective bank’s portal to ensure transparency and to enhance the credibility of the whole promotion process.

35.  The marks allotted to the Annual Performance Appraisal Reports shall not exceed 40 out of 100 for the whole promotion process.

36.  The performance appraisal activity must be a transparent one and it is to be preceded by quarterly feedback from the appraising authority.  Obviously, such feedback in the form of suggestions must be in writing.

37.  The performance appraisal is to be completed by 30^th June, every year. 

38.  An officer who has scored not less than 60 % on an average during the past 5 years will be eligible to participate in the promotion process.  In the present scheme of things, a bad appraisal score of one single year will ruin the prospects of promotion of an officer for 3 continuous years.  Thus, it is tantamount to awarding a major penalty!

39.  In case of an officer staff stagnating in one grade/scale for 10 years without promotion, he/she shall be automatically moved on to the next higher grade/scale.  

40.  However, this is only for the purpose of paying the monthly emoluments and the superannuation benefits.  All other attendant benefits and executive powers will not automatically accrue to him/her, unless otherwise specified.

41.  Because of this new provision, stagnation increments for officers will cease to accrue after 10 years of service in a particular grade/scale.

42.  If any officer staff is denied this ‘automatic switch over’, he/she must be notified in writing with the reasons thereof.  Appeal against this decision can be made to the competent authority.  Any appeal must be disposed of within 90 days.  Else, it will be deemed that the appeal has been allowed. 

43.  If the appeal has been turned down, another appeal for review to the next higher authority can be made.  This must be disposed of within 30 days.  Else, it will be deemed that the appeal for review has been allowed and accordingly, the original decision is annulled. 

44.  Management cannot appeal against its own decision by taking up the matter at yet higher levels.

45.  In case of officer staff who are denied ‘automatic switch over’ to the next higher grade/scale, one stagnation increment equivalent to the last drawn increment will be granted for every 2 years of service till they are formally ‘promoted’ to the next higher grade/scale or till they retire from bank’s services.

46.  Stagnation increments will not be granted to those who refuse promotion after being offered promotion and those who opt for reversion to the previous grade/scale, after accepting promotion.

47.  Reversion to a lower grade/scale can be permitted any time during one’s career, but only once.  In case of such reversion, they will be fitted in the appropriate scale of pay.

PENSION

48.  Pension is to be fixed basing on the last drawn pay or the average of the last 10 months’ pay, whichever is higher.

49.  All pensioners, regardless of their date of retirement, must be given the same pension uniformly, basing on their length of service, last drawn pay etc. by invoking the principle of ‘One Rank, One Pension’ (OROP).

50.  D.A. on pension must be revised quarterly, as in the case of ‘in service’ staff.

51.  Pension must be granted to those who voluntarily retired after 15 years of continuous service in a bank, as per the clarification given by Government of India and RBI.

52.  Pension must also be granted to those who resigned after 20 years of continuous service in a bank.

53.  Commutation of pension must be permitted up to 40% of the basic pension.

BONUS

Bonus must be paid to each and every staff up to General Managers (TEGS VII) level.  But, there may be a ceiling on the amount of bonus payable.  It is suggested that this ceiling be fixed at the total monthly emoluments payable to an officer in MMGS II at the maximum of the scale. ‘Bonus Act’ must be suitably amended for this purpose.  For this, amendment to ‘Bonus Act’ in the parliament is necessary.