Bank strike: Which employees are exempt from participating? Unions dispute IBA's expanded list

The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has objected to the Indian Banks' Association's (IBA) expanded list of "sensitive installations" whose employees would be exempted from participating in the proposed bank strike, saying the list goes beyond the exemptions agreed under existing bipartite settlements.

In a letter to IBA dated September 23, the UFBU said the association's communication to public sector banks and IDBI Bank sought to "unilaterally enlarge" the categories of officers and employees excluded from industrial action.

The UFBU represents nine bank employee and officer organisations, including AIBEA, AIBOC, NCBE, AIBOA, BEFI, INBEF and INBOC.

According to the UFBU, Clause 16 of the 5th Joint Note covers officers manning hubs or switch centres, disaster recovery centres or similar sensitive installations requiring round-the-clock maintenance or surveillance, as well as security officers required for such maintenance or surveillance.

Similarly, Clause 37(i) of the 8th Bipartite Settlement covers watch and ward staff and employees manning installations requiring round-the-clock maintenance and surveillance, the union body said.

"Thus, the agreed exemption is specific, conditional and installation-oriented," the UFBU said.

The unions said the exemption cannot be extended merely because a function is considered important, a department has a particular nomenclature, a function relates to government business or a bank has unilaterally declared a department "sensitive".

It disputed any blanket exemption covering an entire department, office, vertical or category of employees merely because it has been described as "sensitive" by a bank or the IBA.

The UFBU objected to the inclusion of a number of functions in the IBA's list, including centralised pension processing cells, contact centres, complaint management systems, centralised back offices, government business and PFMS cells, besides data centres, payment and settlement hubs, ATM operations, treasury operations, cyber security operations, clearing processing centres and network operations centres.

Categories that UFBU say are not blanket exemptions

The union forum specifically said the existing settlements do not provide blanket exemptions for a number of functions and departments listed by the IBA, including:

• Security and surveillance
• Data Centres and Disaster Recovery Centres
• Payment, Settlement and Remittance Hubs
• ATM Operations and Switch Centres
• Currency Chests and Cash Processing Centres
• Treasury Operations and SWIFT Cells
• Cyber Security Operations Centres
• Clearing Processing Centres
• Digital/Alternate Delivery Channel Operations
• Fraud Risk Management and I4C Cells
• Network Operations Centres
• Centralised Pension Processing Cells
• Contact Centres
• Complaint Management Systems
• Centralised Back Offices
• Call Centres
• Government Business and PFMS Cells

"Several of these descriptions are not 'installations' in the limited sense contemplated by the mutually agreed clauses but are broad business, processing, administrative or customer-service functions," it said.

The unions clarified that particular personnel working in such functions could be covered by the agreed exemption if they are actually required to man a qualifying sensitive installation requiring round-the-clock maintenance or surveillance.

"The exemption attaches to the qualifying installation and the personnel indispensable for maintaining it round the clock; it does not attach indiscriminately to the entire department, office, vertical or workforce," the UFBU said.

The union body said it was not consulted before the expanded list was prepared and warned that allowing one party to a bilateral settlement to unilaterally reinterpret the exemptions would undermine the framework of industrial relations in the banking sector.

The UFBU also said it was "seriously contemplating" issuing appropriate notice for termination of the agreed provisions relating to exemptions from industrial action.

"If mutually negotiated exemptions are to be treated by IBA as open-ended provisions capable of unilateral expansion by management, UFBU will necessarily have to reconsider whether such agreed exemptions should continue to remain operative at all," it said.

The unions have asked the IBA to immediately keep its September 23 communication and the expanded list in abeyance and advise member banks accordingly.

"If the communication dated 23.09.2026 and the enlarged list are not immediately withdrawn or kept in abeyance, UFBU shall be constrained to consider appropriate industrial action, apart from all other organisational and legal measures available to it," the letter said.