The consummate ease with which our government staff and public sector employees lapse into strikes is truly appalling. Even more disconcerting is the sinister timing of their agitations which are always calculated to inflict the maximum damage and agony on the hapless commoner whom they are supposed to serve.
And to rub sodium chloride into the wound they even unabashedly claim success after having screwed up our personal and business routines. Indeed, the very fact that the success of their strike is measured by the hardship caused to the people is by itself an indication of a deplorable streak of insensitivity and sadism that marks their demeanour.
Today’s strike by the over thirteen lakh (oops!) bank employees all over India has all the above mentioned features and one can rest assured that this stir too will be a ‘success’ like the earlier ones. Of course one may ask why this strike if the earlier strikes were also successful. Therein lies the trick, the play of masterminds.
Will a blackmailer ever call it quits, especially if he knows that his weak target could be fleeced to any limit? Somewhat similar is the provocation for these strikes. All it needs to raise the red banner is the existence of a weak government and the perception of an anomaly. Add to it the massive numerical strength – which is invisible when it comes to service- that the unions boast of and we have a grossly one-sided battle on hand.
It is a cake walk for the strikers for they belong to an essential service, at least now, and can truly hold the nation to ransom. And we have no choice but to pay up for if we don’t the next strike could be indefinite. Or so they say.
Why are the bankmen striking today? Of course, besides the unwritten but statutory necessity to strike work periodically lest they lose their touch, the bankmen now want just twenty percent more than what they are getting- not earning, mind you- currently. The IBA is game for just eight percent and bankmen want it to come up a little bit as they themselves are ready to come down a few notches.
Of course, one should resist the temptation to ask if the efficiency and productivity of the bank staff can also be expected to increase by twenty percent or by whatever percentage the deal is clinched. But such reciprocity is never in their scheme of things. Secondly, they could never do it too, even if they wanted to used as they are to the maxim: Less work, more pay, no accountability.
The bankmen also seem to have drawn inspiration from the Fifth Pay Commission’s dole to the government employees, which has put several categories of them quite a few rungs above the bankmen with regard to salaries. Understandably, the bankmen are aghast that if the government staff can get so much without doing work, then why not they too, for they are in no way inferior when it comes to work.
Unbeatable logic, we must say, from their standpoint, for they have all been children of a profligate god and live in a world where words like productivity, accountability, efficiency and fairplay do not exist. For them, the only thing that matters is pay parity with the highest paid employee in some godforsaken department somewhere in the government and not merit or worth. It is a different matter that had the latter been the yardstick, our unemployment level would have surpassed even our population!
If performance had been a bench-mark for pay, which should be the case, it is anybody’s guess how many of them would even qualify for employment, let alone salary hikes. Their consciences too would strike work if such questions are raised. Instead, it is more rewarding to scout for anomalies and so the bank staff are now truly agitated that they have been left out of the charity binge, something that they cannot let pass so easily.
A union worthy has even claimed that their salaries should really be hiked by 56 percent so that real socialism is achieved and that they are only being reasonable in demanding twenty percent. The Fifth Pay Commission itself was a populist, mega blunder of the UF government, and it makes little economic sense to set off a spiral based on it by buckling to the demands of the bankmen which will only compound the blunder.
Perhaps the government can consider forming the Sixth Pay Commission which can suggest pruning down the pay of the government staff to achieve parity with the bank staff and such other inferior class of unfortunate employees. That would also be socialism and a less painful one at that.
As this unseemly bargaining goes on with impunity, the public, who have the maximum stake in the banks, what with their deposits, current accounts and loan facilities remaining out of bounds on a crucial working day, are left low and dry. But that rarely matters to the strikers and they even have the temerity to say that it is only because of their concern for the people that they have struck work only for a day.
Very magnanimous indeed, but for the fact that the next few days are natural holidays on account of various festivals and it is going to be quite some time before the bank doors open for uninterrupted access to the customers. By skipping work at the drop of a hat on the pretext of perceived imbalances, the bank staff, besides losing public sympathy which in any case was not overflowing, have also slowly and steadily become non-performing liabilities, much worse than the non-performing assets that plague the banks!.
e-mail the writer at
trjawahar@gmail.com
