At a convention here, the unions said they will start with gate demonstrations at the branches on Tuesday, follow up with a protest rally on May 13 and lunchtime demonstrations on May 14, and observe a token strike on May 15. The unions said the banks' decision to close and merge the profit making branches is anti-employee and anti-union.

However, an ANZ Grindlays press release, issued by its media consultant, quoted director Illmar Taimre (who heads retail banking in India) as saying, "The bank will redeploy staff, effect fitments against attrition and arrange for re-training wherever necessary."

The Reserve Bank of India has been intimated about the decision, the release said.

At the convention, Gurudas Dasgupta, the Communist Party of India member of Parliament, said he will raise this issue on the floor ofthe House. He said the ANZ and Standard Chartered decisions were the beginning of a concerted move by foreign banks to crush the trade union movement and West Bengal has been chosen as the starting point.

Dasgupta said that he has already written to Union Finance Minister Yashwant Singh and also to the Reserve Bank of India governor Bimal Jalan.

Sanjib Chakraborty, general secretary of the Standard Chartered Employees Union, said the branches will be stop functioning from May 17.

A union release pointed out that out of 422 clerks at Stanchart, 321 have been declared surplus and will finally have to accept the compulsory retirment scheme.

Grindlays has decided to merge nine branches across the country, of which five are in Calcutta. The bank operates in 14 cities and it recently opened a branch in Ahmedabad. The Grindlays release said its decision to merge some branches was the first step towards adopting a new global operating platform that will provide customers true online connectivity.