United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU)calls All India Bank strike on August five

Kolkata, Aug 2: Banking services across the country is likely to come to a halt on August five in response to a one day strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) to press for its 21-point charter of demands.
Announcing the decision of UFBU, a conglomerate of all the nine major bank unions in the country, its Convenor Shayamal Karmakar and other leaders told newsmen here today that more than ten lakh bank employeees would participate in the day long token strike.
Expressing deep regrets for the possible inconveniences of the general public because of the strike, Mr Karmakar said each of the country's 87,000 branches of all public sector, private, and regional rural banks would be closed on Friday next.
Elaborating the reasons behind convening the all India strike, Mr Karmakar said in addition to their long standing demand for the withdrawal of the privatisation attempt of public sector banks, protest against the merger attempts and protest against continuous outsourcing of core banking activities by the union government, the bank employees were now protersting against the government's alleged attempt to speed up the amendments of the Banking Law to allow unrestricted voting rights of private bank share holders.
''We are also demanding the filling up of more than 300,000 vacancies in public sector Banks alone and the appointments should be made through the Banking Services Recrutment Board only,'' Mr Karmakar said.
He said in case the government did not pay any heed to their demands and ignore the strike call, the bank employees might go for a bigger struggle including an indefinie all India strike later also under the banner of UFBU.
Members of the UFBU comprised AIBEA, AIBOC, NCBE, BEFI, NOBW NOBO, INBEF and INBOC.
Incidentally, this was the second all Indian bank strike call this year by UFBU to press for similar demands.
--UNI