Are Clerks Discriminated in Public Sector Banks?

Are Clerks Discriminated in Public Sector Banks?

Marginalisation of Clerks on Wage Distributions in Banks in India :                   By Radhakrishnan N

The three bipartite settlements signed by bank unions in the recent past have undermined and destabilized the roles of clerks in the banks and dispossessed them of benefits which they are entitled.

In every industry when labour-management negotiations take place while they submit their demands for any settlement , they propose ,advocate and hint at minimum pay for a fresher who join the ranks.

But when bipartite parleys were conducted, officer unions utilized and exploited all those opportunities by sticking on fresher pay that should be extended to an officer.
There were so many media articles, propaganda on the low scale of wages to bank employees in general.

But all these campaign, acts of their drumming up the support did not in any way benefit the clerks working in banks when once the settlement was concluded.
Clerks ended up with a very lesser pay and officers got their due share. Officers are really entitled to the new pay and they strongly deserve it but the omission, exclusion, non inclusion and leaving out of the clerk community benefiting from the new drifting, floating of emerging trends in the pay arena of the country in tandem with all other sectors like Academic community, Central Governmental, Defence etc

In earlier days the variance of pay among the three classes of bank employees stood as follows:

Substaff-Clerk: 85:100 Clerk-Officers: 80-100 In the first one there has been qualification mismatch and the in the latter there is no qualification mismatch exists.
When such is the case the entire campaign devised and worked out by all the bank associations and fraternity disgrace the clerical community in the end by fixing, bidding just half of the basic pay, wages of an officer ,instead of keeping ,continuing ,maintaining and sustaining the earlier parity of 75-80 to 100.

This happened in a clandestine and covert fashion during the three phases of bipartite negotiations in a period of 13 years and this cloak and dagger, surreptitious way of marginalizing the possible benefits and gains of clerks has made the clerks an inferior ,second class group in the bank working environment.

Now the total emoluments of a clerk (graduate) is Rs 14500 while that of an officer stands at Rs 29000 (other than SBI)


Now many prophets are posting articles and suggestions of a new pay scale after the X th bipartite settlement as follows:

New Basic Pay of substaff: Rs 12000
New Baisc Pay of Clerk : Rs 15000
New basic pay of an officer: Rs 30000

(As informed earlier between the first two there is qualification mismatch, but between the last two there is no qualification mismatch)

How it looks like comrades??? Again the space between clerk and officer starts to grow!

It seems that by keeping a basic pay of clerks at Rs 7000 (6200+800Grdpay) and that of an officer at Rs 14500 in the 9th bipartite, the entire load of pension had been thrust on the shoulders of clerical community while others benefited with the standard ,contemporary benefits available to employees of other sectors not bearing the pension load.

When such is the case, no individual leader or no organization has come out and called the above irregularity,anomaly and inconsistency as illegitimate,deceitful,unfair unwarranted ,crooked ,tricky or Machiavellian!

Why no one comes and say this is cunning and crafty ???

Let the comrades explain in this forum.

When the entire clerical, sub-staff community stand united in getting limited time norms for officers and limited transfer norms for officers, workmen community is ignored , disregarded and abandoned by their officer comrades.

Why they have not come out and called it unreasonable, irrational and awkward to get just 50% of the pay of an officer. The officer community has not insisted that clerks must be paid at least and as minimum , 75% of an officer pay!!

Clerical community are now being conveyed that you were 3/4th s of the other person earlier and now two of your breeds equals one. It seems that we need a constitutional directive to remove "huge" disparity" 

Hence if no steps are taken by the clerical community during the bipartite on progress they are going to be cheated and defrauded again as no one is there to address and attend to their lawful, equitable, fair and just claims