CHENNAI: Customers must brace themselves for another day without banking services within a month, as 1.5 lakh bank employees in southern states will strike work on Tuesday in support of their demands, including a hike in wages.

The bank employees unions are demanding 23% hike in their wages and salaries. The managements are ready to pay only 11%.

Tuesday’s strike will be the first phase of the nationwide strike planned by the employees.

“Nearly 1.5 lakh employees of all designations from 27 public sector banks will strike work tomorrow. This will be the first phase of a nationwide strike and it will be confined to the four states,” said R Franco, general secretary of the State Bank of India Employees Association .

The employees are demanding a higher wage hike and also a 5-day week. “Our demands include wage hike and five-day week. We will wait for the response of the bank managements and if they are favourable to our demands, there will be no more strikes. But if the response is negative, there will be an indefinite strike across the nation,” he said.

The wage revision of public sector bank employees has been due since November 2012. The union said the strike was to draw the attention of Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and government over the “anguish” of the employees.

It may be recalled that employees of public sector banks went on a token strike on November 12.

