All India Union Bank Employees Association has raised a critical issue of rejection of compassionate appointments by Union Bank of India.
Bank has a board approved Scheme for extending Compassionate Appointment to family of the deceased employees dying in harness in the services of the bank. The scheme is in line with the Central Govt Scheme, which aims at providing financial support to the family of the deceased employee.
The scheme operates with parameters decided with the Union to arrive at the financial conditions of the family to decide appropriately for granting the appointment. The scheme was modified as per the demands of the Association that were duly approved by the Board also.
Till 2022 the Bank was granting appointment by adapting to the Scheme with pro employee approach. However, during last 2 years, Bank became too negative and denied appointments in the name of one or other excuses.
Many eligible employees are being knocked out of the Scheme. When the Bank has clearly agreed to determine the indigency of the family by maintaining that 100% of the last drawn gross salary will be the monthly income that is required by the family to maintain itself, then, the same was flouted to deny appointments to many families.
In case of ex-service men, it was decided that holding the pension along with 100% of last drawn salary to decide financial conditions of the family, but the same was also ignored to deny appointments.
In such circumstances, the association decided to agitate and go on strike in 2024 for various issues including Compassionate Appointment. But at the intervention of CLC, the management agreed to release all the pending appointments but the assurances is yet to be fulfilled.
Even today, a lot of cases are pending and large number of cases are declined without assigning reasons. This can be highlighted through a recent case where a family of a deceased Chief Manager despite receiving more than a crore of rupees as term insurance settlement in addition to other retirement benefits, got appointment whereas a sub-staff’s family receiving monthly income around Rs.45000 has been denied compassionate appointment.
The association has appealed to the MD&CEO of Union Bank of India to:
- Release appointments to all the eligible pending cases.
- Review all the appeals received from the family of the deceased employees and dispose them judiciously by granting appointments wherever necessary.
- Release appointments without insisting for granting appointment to wives.
- Uphold the principles of Compassion and accordingly deal with the cases.
