Chennai: As employees of public sector banks in India stuck work in support of their demands, including a wage hike, harried customers lashed out at the stand taken by the employees. The strike crippled banking services - cheque clearing operations, foreign currency transactions as well as money market operations.

Said Ashok Pai, a businessman, "When there is recession and people are losing jobs, bank employees with secure jobs are demanding a wage hike. These things can happen only in our country. It's time that the striking employees are sacked.''

"We are on strike from today as the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) did not concede to the bank unions' demand for a wage hike," said United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) convener C H Venkatachalam. IBA is the apex bank managements association, while UFBU is the forum of bank employees. An umbrella body of nine bank employee unions in the country, UFBU claims to have members from public, private and foreign banks.

The main demands of the striking staff are wage increase, a better social security net to take care of retirement needs and a policy of providing jobs on compassionate grounds to family members of deceased or disabled employees.

According to UFBU, 10 lakh employees, including officers, are participating in the strike, and services in about 60,000 bank branches in the country have been affected. PSU banks control about 70% of banking operations in India.

While employees of ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank are not party to the strike, employees of Catholic Syrian Bank, HSBC Bank and Lakshmi Vilas Bank have reportedly joined the agitation for better pay. "Our banking operations have been affected today but we had stacked our ATMs with cash. While cash withdrawals wouldn't have been a problem, other services were affected," admitted V S Reddy, managing director, Lakshmi Vilas Bank. The bank has 109 ATMs and 250 branches across the country.

The bank unions have been demanding a 20% wage hike and rejected the offer of a 17.5% increase made on Wednesday by IBA, which represents the bank management. The Central government had asked the unions to hold talks with the bank managements and the chief labour commissioner, but the parleys were inconclusive.

A senior banker who did not want to be named said that the IBA committee was actively looking into the wage hike issue proposed by the bank unions. "Ultimately, there will be a meeting point and some conclusion will be reached. Until then, there will be some friction that can result in strikes."