NEW DELHI: Bank employees' unions under the aegis of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) have threatened to go on a nationwide strike on January 27, demanding implementation of a 5-day week.
If the strike materialises, it would have a significant impact primarily on the operations of public sector banks for three days in a row, as January 25 and 26 are holidays.
At present, bank employees get off on the second and fourth Saturday of each month, apart from Sundays.
Declaring the remaining two Saturdays as holidays was agreed between the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and UFBU during the wage revision settlement in March, 2024.
"It is unfortunate that the government is not responding to our genuine demand. There would be no loss of man-hours because we have agreed to an extra 40 minutes working per day from Monday to Friday," UFBU said in a statement.
Already, RBI, LIC, GIC, etc., are working for 5 days a week, it said, adding that the foreign exchange market, money market, stock exchanges, etc., are not working on Saturdays.
Also, the central and state government offices do not work on Saturdays. Hence, it said, there is no reason why banks cannot introduce a 5-day week.
It has been decided to give the call for an all India strike in all the banks on January 27, 2026, it added.
UFBU is an umbrella organisation of nine major bank unions in India, representing employees and officers across public sector banks and some old generation private banks.
The statement further said the union's social media campaign #5DayBankingNow has got 18,80,027 impressions and about 2,85,200 posts on X.