Demonetisation: Bank employees say overtime not paid; strike in the offing

Even as the Modi-government is facing quite some ire for its economic policies, especially the much-talked about demonetisation, the latest development might just add to its existing woes. Hundreds of bank employees are now threatening to go on a strike and even approach the court as they have reportedly not been paid for the overtime that they worked during the demonetization drive.

The government-run banks' staff worked for almost 14 hours at a stretch in November 2016, and some are said to have even cancelled their leaves to help citizens exchange old currency notes.

"We have brought this issue to the notice of the government... In case dues are not paid, we will take stringent action... we could even go on strike like we did earlier... we will also look at taking other legal action," CH Venkatachalam, general secretary of All India Banks' Employees Association (AIBEA) told Hindustan Times.

Depending on the employees' pay scale, they are supposed to receive an amount of Rs 100-Rs 300 for every extra hour they have worked. However, a majority of the employees are yet to receive the amount.

"We are yet to understand why banks are not paying the overtime dues to employees who are eligible for overtime dues... this pulls down the morale of the employees," Ashwani Rana, another union member told the daily.

Explaining the situation, a senior official of a Mumbai based bank said that these banks are currently focused on other issues such as non-performing assets and screening accounts, and like always HR processes have been ignored.

While the department of financial services had earlier said that it was planning to come up with new and innovative ways to increase the compensation of staffers, nothing has materialised yet and employees still await their compensation.

Even though demonetization did receive some appreciation when it was initially brought into effect, the drive has received a lot backlash off late. Recently, former Union minister Arun Shourie had likened the drive to suicide saying the latter too was a "bold step."

"This is a government by 'ilhaam' (revelation). The Prime Minister has the 'ilhaam' one night that demonetisation should be done and he does it. In any case it was a bold step. I have to remind you suicide too is a bold step," Shourie said in an interview with NDTV.

He also took a dig at the Modi-government as a whole and said: "This is a government of two-and-a-half persons, that is, Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and one in-house lawyer. They don't have the expertise and they have surrounded themselves by persons who don't have the expertise."

"They are now in a sealed echo-chamber. They don't hear what is happening. The distress the RBI has documented of small and medium enterprise. These poor fellows had been clamouring and shouting. Nobody heard them."