Strikes were observed in all nationalised banks including State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Kanara Bank, Union Bank, Vijaya Bank, Corporation Bank and Syndicate Bank, as well as associate banks of the State Bank of India like the SBI for Indore, Travencore, Bikaner and Jaipur.

The employees have opposed mergers and acquisitions of the banks. “This has been a long standing demand of the employees, but they still have not been met,” said All India Bank Officers Confederation’s Pune district secretary R Sangam.

Employees have also demanded that they be given another opportunity to join the pension scheme. “When employees were given the option earlier, nearly 80 per cent opted for Provident Fund (PF) because interest rates were as high as 14 per cent at that time. But now the situation has changed and interest rates have dropped, so we want to be given the option of switching over to PF accounts, as was done in the case of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI),” said Sangam.

Among other demands are restoring compassionate appointments, filling up vacancies, stopping outsourcing of normal banking services, and early settlement of the wage revision issue.

The Association will continue the protests on February 25 and 26.