UFBU said the proposal was agreed in principle during the March 2024 wage settlement with the Indian Banks’ Association and emphasized that there would be no loss of man hours as employees were willing to work an additional 40 minutes daily. (a representative image) | Photo credit: Emmanual Yogini/The Hindu.
If the strike materializes, it would have a particularly significant impact on public sector banks’ operations for three days in a row, as January 25 and 26 are public holidays.
Currently, bank employees have the second and fourth Saturdays of the month off, except Sundays.
Declaring the remaining two Saturdays as holidays was agreed between the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and UFBU during the wage revision scheme in March 2024.
“It is unfortunate that the government does not respond to our sincere request. There would be no loss of man hours because we have agreed to an additional working time of 40 minutes per day from Monday to Friday,” UFBU said in a statement.
RBI, LIC, GIC, etc. are already working five days a week, the report said, adding that the foreign exchange market, money market, stock exchanges, etc. do not work on Saturdays. Also, the central and state government offices do not work on Saturdays.
There is therefore no reason why banks cannot introduce a five-day working week.
It has been decided to call for a pan-India strike across all banks on January 27, 2026, it added.
UFBU is an umbrella organization of nine major banking unions in India, representing employees and officers of public sector banks and some old generation private banks.
The statement further said that the union’s #5DayBankingNow social media campaign has generated 18,80,027 impressions and around 2,85,200 posts on
Published on January 5, 2026
#Bank #unions #threatening #strike #January #fiveday #working #week