Chandigarh: The two-day PSU banks strike which ended on Friday affected the financial operations across the region.

Though the chances of an indefinite strike were overruled at a meeting of various bank unions, the corporate and retail customers were the most affected as automatic teller machines (ATMs) ran dry by the evening. Also, the traders were affected as bulk cash transactions had to be stalled for two days.

With curtailed working hours on Saturday, the backlog is expected to be cleared in the next two-three days. Though the bank officials kept saying that the machines were loaded to their maximum capacity, some of the machines located in busy areas had a different story to tell.

Also, people who have accounts with PSU banks will have to wait till Monday for their salaries to get cleared which could even be delayed further.

“With Saturday being a half day, the backlog of Thursday and Friday would cleared by next Wednesday,” said a senior officer of a PSU bank.

After the meeting between representatives of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) and International Banks’ Association (IBA), it was decided that talks between the two bodies would resume from the decisions of the meeting held on June 9.

This means that negotiations between these two bodies would resume from the IBA’s offer of a wage hike of 17.5 per cent and the understandings already reached on the second option on pension and compassionate appointments.

The bank employees, led by UFBU which comprise six lakh employees, are demanding a salary hike and equal pension for all agreements on compassionate employment in the industry.

“The demands of UFBU are justified. The salaries of PSU employees which contribute a major share to the economy should be on a par with other public sector employees,” said Vijay Magon, president of AIBOC, one of the nine unions of UFBU.   

Besides not agreeing to a wage hike to the extent demanded by the unions, Devinder, convener of UFBU, said the International Banks’ Association has also retracted from its earlier stand to cover the remaining PF scheme of employees under the existing pension scheme.