Onlykashmir.in News Desk
Bank officers and employees held a demonstration in Jammu on Wednesday as the United Forum of Bank Unions confirmed that roughly eight lakh bank employees and officers across the country will observe a three-day nationwide strike on September 28, 29 and 30, 2026, to be followed by an indefinite strike beginning October 26, 2026, if their demands remain unmet.
The UFBU, an umbrella body comprising seven employee and officer associations, including the All India Bank Employees’ Association, the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation, the National Confederation of Bank Employees and four other constituent unions, said the strike will affect staff across public sector banks, private banks, foreign banks, regional rural banks and cooperative banks nationwide. The Jammu demonstration saw participation from officers and employees representing various banks, with union leaders addressing the media on the sidelines of the protest to outline their core demand.
Speaking at the event, AIBOC J&K and Ladakh secretary Rajesh Mehta said the primary demand is government approval for a five-day work week in the banking industry, which would convert the remaining working Saturdays into holidays, in addition to the second and fourth Saturdays already observed as non-working days. Mehta said the demand rests on a recommendation from the Indian Banks’ Association, based on a memorandum of understanding signed between the IBA and UFBU on December 7, 2023, and further affirmed in a settlement and joint note dated March 8, 2024.
Mehta said the recommendation had been pending government approval for nearly two years despite being formally forwarded, prompting UFBU to call a two-day strike on March 24 and 25, 2025, which was deferred after the government indicated the matter was under active consideration. With no subsequent movement, the forum has now escalated to the current three-day strike and the threat of an indefinite stoppage from late October. Union leaders pointed out that five-day work weeks are already in place at the RBI, LIC and GIC, as well as across central and state government offices, stock exchanges and money market operations, arguing that the change would cause minimal disruption to banking customers given the availability of digital banking channels.
Other UFBU leaders recalled that the current Saturday holiday structure traces back to the 10th Bipartite Settlement of 2015, and that a 2023 understanding had agreed to raise daily working hours by 40 minutes from Monday to Friday in exchange for declaring the remaining Saturdays as holidays, a trade-off that has yet to be implemented. The forum appealed to the banking public to bear with any inconvenience caused by the strike action.
