7th pay commission: This kind of tough negotiations in offing?

7th Pay Commission: Salary hike demand has been hanging fire for a very long time and it has raised anxiety levels among all concerned as there is no real example that can act as the template that will show the way forward when negotiations for pay hike finally do happen for central government employees. Unless, of course, Centre declares it by fiat where no negotiations are asked for. In such a vacuum, what is happening in other segments of the bureaucratic and financial system acquires importance. The current tussle that is in the news is between the Indian Banks Association (IBA) and bank employees unions. Staff has asked for a pay hike as high as 25%, but had earlier added this is negotiable. IBA, which represents bank management, will have none of it. It had offered just 2 percent, citing bank NPAs crisis to say it can't offer a greater pay hike to staff. Employees had replied that the problems were not created by them and that they have worked hard to implement government schemes such as Jan Dhan, demonetisation, Mudra and Atal Pension Yojana, among others. 

Since the employees unions stuck to their demands, IBA stance softened and it announced its willingness to give a salary hike of 6%. Employees' unions promptly rejected the proposal. However, though unions, under the banner of United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), rejected the offer again, it did say that it is still open to negotiations.

UFBU convener for Maharashtra, Devidas Tuljapurkar said, "IBA improved the offer from two per cent to six per cent. UFBU has rejected the offer but have agreed to continue to negotiate." This was after the 13th round of wage negotiations with IBA, which represents 37 banks.

Unions had gone on a two-day strike starting May 30 when they were offered a meagre 2% salary hike.

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For central government employees, the basic demand is that their fitment formula is hiked from the 2.57 times to 3.68 times and the minimum salaries to be boost to Rs 26,000. In between. a middle ground solution was floated, but it fell by the wayside. That involved raising fitment factor to 3.00 times. So, as far as the question 'when will 7th pay commission salaries rise' is concerned, clearly, the future is full of uncertainties.