BANK EMPLOYEES TASK FOR FUTURE- Must Read

A class conscious trade union has basic objectives, some principled perceptions, which we cannot ever forget or forsake. Our role and achievements have been acknowledged, appreciated and emulated by many. Time and again we have been overwhelmed by the sympathy and support we have received from the trade union fraternity. We are happy and immensely grateful. The support has been forthcoming, for we have always considered ourselves and acted as part and parcel of the general trade union and democratic movement. Our trade union consciousness propels us towards the united movement in peoples' cause”. We are sure that this would continue, both for the sake of general democratic movement and in our own interest as well."

The entire trade union movement is facing a grim situation. The offensives of capital worldwide have intensified. Newer and newer methods of attack against the employees' collectivity, consciousness and perception are being employed to break the morale and the solidarity of workers. A psychological offensive has been let loose which tries to project that workers can no longer protect themselves against attacks, trade unions can offer no solution to the situations coming forth, that they are vulnerable and helpless before the attacks and they have no alternative but to submit and surrender to the dictates and exploitation of the owners of capital. The role objective is to deunionise the employees because the employers know pretty well that if the unions are not there as the collective embodiment of strength of the employees and the workers, they have none to fear for. If the unions are not there or are there for namesake only, not having any effective role, the common employees out of sense of despair and uncertainty would no longer think of collective resistance and will act at the bidding of the management. This is an ideal situation for any management or employer. The process is in full swing in many countries and has started in our country too, simultaneously with so-called reforms. The managements, the employers, the chambers of commerce and the foreign agencies are demanding time and again to repeal the labour laws so that they have the power to hire and fire, as we have stated already. Along with that comes another tactic of the management-you are no longer required and the institution cannot provide you with monthly wages day in and day out when your job has either been abolished or can be performed by lesser number of people; hence you retire "voluntarily" and take some money in return. Individual employees out of their despondency and sense of insecurity might opt for such a solution, which is no solution at all, for, they might have already lost the confidence that trade unions and the collective endeavours can protect them.

It is, therefore, extremely necessary to combat the psychological offensives, else, the trade unions will cease to be a rallying point of the employees and the instruments of struggle. This is a danger accentuating day by day. Hence trade unions must squarely face such a situation, the combined offensives of the capital, and only a strong united, conscious organization can take up the challenge. Organization and organization alone is the only weapon in the hands of the employees to protect them. For building a strong organization, unity amongst the membership, and unity amongst the employees in general, unity with the democratic people and the working class must be achieved-that is the paramount task before us. We must admit that we find ourselves lacking in many respects. Our units are there, our activities are there, but mobilisation of membership on issues is not to the desired extent. Are we losing touch with our membership? Let us analyse self-critically. But, it is also our experience that the same membership rush to us time and again for their own needs and difficulties; then, it might be that we are not being able to inculcate amongst them the gravity of the situation and the need to rally behind the Union for any call. If so, it is the failure of the leadership both at the Central unit and the all India levels. Members may give more attention to circulars dealing with their day to day issues or items related to their own immediate desires and expectations, while ignoring those which seek to apprise them of the situations around and our tasks ahead. This is not unusual, but this is an area of our weakness definitely, because, as we have stressed time and again in this report itself and in other fora, that if our membership are not aware of the situations around they may not defend their own interests. Short-term needs must not blur our vision to long-term interests. A trade union without a long-term perspective cannot correctly understand the present also and is likely to falter and fail.

True, there are practical difficulties and genuine problems; local, regional situations and varying stages of democratic movement are factors of constraints. Nevertheless, we must consciously strive on a priority basis against these factors and only then BANK UNIONS can play its due role in a very complex and difficult environs to safeguard long-term interests of the employees and the institution.

Group interests must not be allowed to prevail over the collective interests and Union is definitely not a platform for sectional projections. This weakens the organisation at its very root. Uncalled for dissension, not on issues and principles, but centering round groups and individuals is extremely undesirable for any democratic organisation. Units' strength can be judged only by its strength of mobilisation and they can have the strength only if the members are fully united. The unit leadership has the greatest responsibility in this regard ,and I want to particularly emphasize this aspect before the conference, which is the assembly of the grass root leadership of our Union. None of us can afford to work in a way that weakens our collective strength, for that will be the most singular disservice to the cause of Bank employees in a crucial time.

OUR units should be catalyst for unity and in this regard once again we draw attention to what we said in our last report all units must develop ourselves as the centre of all embracing unity of the employees. We must fight resolutely against any sort of caste, religious or regional feelings of discrimination, if there be any, anywhere. To us, love for the Union and dedication to the cause of collective interest are only, what matters, and absolutely nothing else. We are proud that all sections of our members, irrespective of their caste and creed, look to the Union as their very own and feel emotionally involved. This is a feature we must cherish, strengthen and carry forward. Any deviation, would be a gross departure from our principles and tradition and would harm us irreparably."

Unit leadership should associate themselves actively with the general Bank employees, working class and democratic movement of the respective areas. This will facilitate our integration with the general trade union movement, which is very vital in the overall perspective today. This will also give an exposure to our base level leadership and educate them appropriately. Our participation will be welcomed by the fraternal trade unions.

A few colleagues in some centers are still away from us. We must patiently explain to them our sincerity and commitment for the issues affecting the Bank employees and try to bring them in. We have already stressed on an area of deficiency in our organisation i.e. lack of participation of the lady employees in all regions in our activities. This has to be addressed very seriously and BANK UNIONS will be extremely happy to extend its help to the units in this regard. Educating the leadership is also an important responsibility of any conscious trade union. We have not been able to make much headway in this regard till now though we have discussed the matter time and again. We propose to form an Education Sub-committee. This sub-committee shall pursue the matter seriously.

Culture is a unifying force. But our culture is under incessant external attack. Mahatma Gandhi expressed eloquently earlier in the last century:

"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible but I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."

The new culture of globalization is the culture of decadence, culture that turns all values and ethics into commodities, culture of crass individualism. The great culture of our country, which upholds the ideal of unity in plurality and humaneness, has to be spread to counter the corroding effects of a decadent culture. Thus, such cultural activities by our units are most welcome-they have a role to organise the employees.

A new mindset has developed amongst the elitist section of the society to which, we, the bank employees also belong. It will not be an overstatement if we say that the middle-class sections are increasingly becoming a victim of consumerism and money mindedness leading towards giving less stress on inter-dependence and collectivism but more accent on individualism contributing towards another form of Deunionisation eroding the very fabric of organizational bondage. So, it needs rejuvenation and reorientation of required ideological course for building better understanding in the rank and file ensuring their involvement in organizational matters with consistent process of attachment by extending grass root level organizational democracy to affront the new challenges in the new challenging situation.

Thanks to our traditional futuristic vision, our organizational units at various levels have been able to assimilate the changing context and attune themselves by and large. That is why we are relevant and vibrant.

Again, running our Unions in today’s context requires special attention. More and more young comrades are catapulted to positions of responsibilities in the Union. They cannot be expected to be thorough in all facets of the organization’s administration. Organising, mobilizing, communicating, interacting, convincing, negotiating with management, legal knowledge, experience in defense, knowledge about our Settlements, service conditions, rights and privileges – it is a skilled job to be a Union functionary. Hence, our Unions have to take steps to impart trade union education to the increasing new comrades who are the future of the organisation. But presently trade union education is by and large a casualty. Can we ignore it any longer?

The whole edifice of the organisation stands on the strength of our members. Hence, a strong membership alone can ensure a strong organisation. The strength of the membership will correspond to its conviction, discipline and loyalty. A mechanical or contractual or casual approach to the organisation is not desirable. A member with full understanding, involvement and consciousness will alone add intrinsic strength to the organisation. Hence, in the emerging scenario, when de-unionisation is being attempted, the prime task of the organisation is to further unionise the members in the strict sense of the term. We can ignore this task only at the peril of our Unions.

Today the composition of employees has undergone a change. In the post-VRS scenario, new problems are cropping up. With the fast advent of technology, in the computerized atmosphere, the job role of the employees and officers is undergoing a change. The role of banking as an intermediary is also changing. The attitude of the employees has undergone a change in the context of the improvement that has taken place in their lives and living standards. Hence, the organisation has to attune itself to these changes and workout its appropriate strategies to stay on. We have tried to carry on the duties to the best of our ability. The task is enormous and onerous. The future is going to be full of challenges around us. Unless we can build a broad team and function more effectively than in the past, we will not be able to match the situation. Hence strengthening our organisation should be our main thrust and concern in the coming years. If we can take care of the organisation, the organisation will take care of us.

We appropriately want to highlight one aspect which as a trade union we have not yet properly addressed ourselves to-the work culture. As employees of this premier public sector institution it is our bounden duty to give our best for the institution, in extension, for the nation. We must inculcate amongst the employees at large, the concept of disciplined dedicated service, sincerely attending to one's jobs and responsibilities. Then, and only then only we acquire the moral right to fight against mismanagement, if any, against dereliction of duty at any level, however high. We, by our own conscious collective efforts, should make this institution an epitome of efficiency and service and at the same time an institution where workers' rights, privileges and security of service are fully protected and which discharges its responsibilities to the nation without any curtailment.

Trade union members are not only workers, but also consumers and citizens. As workers they expect unions to defend their rights and interests at work. As consumers they are not content if the quality is shoddy or inconsistent, prices are unreasonable, supply erratic and attitudes of staff reprehensible. As citizens they want their rights above other workers rights. As members of the community they want the government to set things in order, stem pollution and cut red tape. Thus today trade unions have additional dilemmas, because their members wear different hats. In the enterprise where they work, they are affected employees seeking to protect and defend the rights and interests as employees, or they look at issues through the eyes of a consumer or member of the community. We will be isolated if we merely and narrowly pursue the selfish sectional interests of the members at the enterprise. We should therefore fit in the role of aligning our members with the interest of those of the immediate community and the wider society. Trade unions today have to continue to diversify their activities, both internally and externally. Internally we have to appeal to our workers by offering a new range of services, upgrading of skills etc. Externally we have to strengthen our position by seeking new alliances through civil society-with environmental groups, women associations, and community associations. In making common cause with such groups we can secure broad public support for important employment issues hence there is a need to develop an associational, instead of pecuniary logic, an inclusive instead of exclusive strategy in membership drive and establish broad alliances with various institution in the civil society. We need to preserve our place in the wider society by building coalitions with other stakeholders and chartering their programmes and services to their members with due regard to their social tasks.

Another aspect that is also very necessary, a little self-critical approach on how we also fail sometimes. Many of us have some tendency to treat our unions as our personal preserves. If we have got to establish the image of BANK UNIONS , the image will be established not alone by the office bearers who have got to be the ideals in so far as all the virtues of trade union leaders are required, but by our attitude, by our utterance, by our perseverance, by our tolerance and by our comradely approach to all those comrades who are young. Disruption thrives on disaffection. Disaffection comes where we are unable to provide proper leadership at regional and local levels in the desired manner. I do not blame anybody, I shall take most of the blame myself, and each one of us has got to take a self critical, a self-analytical approach and correct mistakes collectively
We emphasize once again that the unity, broadest possible unity amongst our members, communality of perception and perfect amity have to be assiduously built up everywhere through democratic methods by free and uninhibited exchange of views and thereby making our Union stronger. Let, this be the clarion call from this conference to our membership everywhere.

Self-Introspection

Through years of struggle and sacrifices, Bank Unions has remained a vibrant organizationS, championing the cause of the Bank Employees. r members have always responded to the call of the organization. But there are certain weaknesses too. We are to overcome those weaknesses. Sometimes we become very casual in our approach and do not mobilize our members nor do we reach to our members carrying the message of the organization. Many times some of the Units failed to fulfill their organizational commitment. We also do not take up the issues, which are of fundamental nature, and/ or concern but prefer to ignore or overlook. We have developed a tendency to give priority to our bank – wise organization than to industry-wise organization, which has been providing a protective umbrella to all our activities and helping us to achieve and march ahead even in our respective banks.

Can we today run a Union without having confrontation with the management on fundamental issues? Can we service by maintaining so called cordial relation only with the management? To-day’s management, in the reforms era, have no human feeling and devoid of compassion. They want to utilize union leaders and unions to implement their own agenda. They want to dictate our trade union policies / functioning. We should not fall prey to such designs of the management. Unless we tighten the loose ends of the organization and units and fight, we cannot survive. The spirit of oneness, which was preached and practiced by our leaders, is still the guiding force of our organization. We must strengthen NCBE as a platform of Bank Employees of all shades of opinion with democratic functioning.

In the context of increasing attacks, many protest programmes are being undertaken- protest letters, protest telegrams to Government, IBA, RBI, Bank Managements, etc.- we find that even these simple programmes are sometimes ignored or not cared for. Is it lethargy or are our units engaged in other important work? If our own Units do not register their protest as called upon, how can we focus our viewpoints to the authorities? Will they take us seriously? Is there not a danger that Government and managements will tend to undermine our organization?

The constant and continuous programmes that we are required to undertake in the present circumstances will become effective only when all our members become aware of the decisions of the organization. It is observed that the communication from the apex to the rank and file gets diluted at every stage or tier of the organization. Sometimes, even the circulars to the Branch Units are not shown to members.

Generally the participation of the members in the various programmes like demonstrations, deputations, meetings, processions and rallies are gradually coming down. Is it because that our members are not serious about these programmes? Is it because that our Units and leaders are not mobilizing our members or unable to mobilize our members? Is it that we have not adequately inspired or educated our members on the significance of these programmes? We must discuss and take effective steps to remove this deficiency. If we move properly, we can mobilize the members.

Branch meetings are becoming far and few unlike in the past. The Branch unit is the live wire of the organization where our soldiers – members are located. If the live contact with the Branch Units are affected or snapped, the whole organization will get affected. Frequent Branch visits, periodical branch meetings, reading circulars in the Branches, regular interactions with our rank and file members, expeditious attention to their problems and grievances are pre-requisites for effective functioning of our organizations.

We are failing to attract more and more dedicated and committed cadres and leaders in our day-to-day trade union activities. Reasons may be many. No recruitment, Retirements, more promotion, high wage, feeling of job security, etc. are some of the hurdles in developing new activists. We have to overcome these organizational weakness for our survival and protection of Trade Union Rights and Jobs through constant training collective effect, young cadre building, and developing effective leadership of the Unions at different levels.

Privatisation and Deunionisation are the prime agenda of the Government and the Bankers. The fight against them not only warrants organizational unity and strength but also total comprehension and perception both ideological and political. Hence, the near future will be quite challenging in the real sense of the term. Prioritisation of our tasks and proper orientation of our objectives, have to be paid special attention. Intensification of our activities, envisioned strategies and functional effectiveness are the need of the hour. The organization has to be tuned with military discipline and preparedness to face the grave attacks.

Having discussed all the developments that have taken place around us during the recent years and the growing challenges confronting the trade unions in the present circumstances, it is necessary that we concretize our tasks and move accordingly.. Unification, mobilization, caderisation, militantisation, education, environmentalisation, evaluation, politicization, direction, and action – these shall be our 10 commandments in the organization to carry out the following 15 vital tasks.

1. Taking necessary steps to remove the weakness in our organization at various levels and to strengthen them appropriately.
2. Giving periodical trade union education to the active cadres of the units.
3. Special efforts to spot and develop active cadres for the future requirements of the organization.
4. Special efforts to improve the participation of our members in various programmes of the organization.
5. Periodical meetings by units at all levels to keep the members aware of all the developments.
6. Special meetings to be conducted to make the employees more aware of the implications of various policies of the Government since there will be more and more struggles against these policies.
7. Periodical Conventions and Seminars to keep the units and members abreast of the various developments in the banking industry.
8. Strengthening THY UNION
9. More co-ordination with the general trade union movement.
10. Special attention for improving customer service to the general public.
11. Prioritizing the issues before the trade unions so that the unions do not become out of context or out of focus and exposing the hidden agenda of politicalised unions.
12. Defeating bank privatization attempts at all costs.
13. Saving the jobs and job security of the employees with all earnestness.
14. Fighting against outsourcing and organized outsourced employees
15. Defeating de-unionisation and preserving our unions.

by 

Sankaran Srinivasan