Bankers are not in a high-wage island

While the Pillai Committee recommendations, implemented in July 1979, established parity between bank and government officers, subsequent Pay Commissions over the years have widened the gap between the two categories.

K. Anandakumar

A myth has slowly gained ground that bank employees are paid inordinately high wages. While arriving at this opinion, there has been no attempt to compare the wages of bank employees with other comparable professions, chiefly those employed in government. A closer scrutiny would suggest that bank employees are, in fact, poorly paid, and not part of a high-wage island.

Read More

How Central Government Staff are able to secure more benefits, as compared to Bank Staff?

Sr.	Central Government Staff	Bank Staff
1	Government Employees have a greater say in implementation of all policies and programmes of the government.  They manage the routine affairs of the government.  They only make the government visible to the common man. They are the people who are running the government show for all practical purposes. Few disgruntled elements among the government employees here and there are sufficient to bring down the popularity of an elected government. So, no government will take the risk of displeasing them.	Bank staff, who are considered as the central pillar of any country's economy, have been reduced to voiceless creatures in our country. All social welfare schemes are dumped on them, by various governments, without giving them any choice or a say. They also have made themselves cheap in the eyes of the society, by undertaking many jobs that are remotely connected to banking.  Their own managements also have to take a major share of the blame for this situation, because they think that in order to face stiff competition in the market and yet survive and flourish, banks must volunteer to do many jobs, even if they are not remunerative and result in wastage of precious human resources and loss of money.
2	Government is a virtual monopoly in many fields.  Moreover, the government is in a commanding position to determine the destiny of many sectors and their survival.	Though banks are also equally powerful and very important to the nation, because of intense, unhealthy and unequal competition, the mid-sized and small banks find it difficult to remain competitive and profit-making.
3	Central government employees/pensioners (48 lakh persons in service and 55 lakh pensioners) constitute a good size of the population.	In comparison, bank staff in service (numbering about 10 lakhs) and another 2.50 lakh pensionersspread over the entire country are numerically very less.
4	If we include those working in state governments and central/state PSUs and also the pensioners who are anticipated to derive benefit out of CPC, they add up to another 2.50 crores.	Same as above.

Read More