THE Bank of Baroda and the Clerical and Commercial Workers Union (CCWU) have entered into a three-year agreement to improve the salary, allowances and overall working conditions of the bank’s workers.

The labour agreement was signed on Tuesday at the Department of Labour’s board room and was spearheaded by Chief Labour Officer, Charles Ogle.
Other representatives in attendance were CCWU President, Sherwood Clarke; Labour Officer, Candace West; Bank of Baroda Managing Director, Arun Gupta; Baroda Mon Repos Branch Manager, Dheeraj Kashyap; Chief Manager at the Georgetown Branch, Jayadev Perunthanath; Deputy Manager, Alexis Mickle and the bank’s workers representative, Naresh Persaud.

Workers from as high up the scale as supervisors to those rank-and-file will receive an eight per cent salary increase in 2019 and add-ons of some three per cent for the next two years.
Their salary will also increase yearly as each worker increases the amount of years they have been a part of the institution. The workers will also receive an increase in fringe benefits, effective from January 2019, which include transportation allowance, meal allowance, entertainment allowance, telephone allowance, cashier allowance and uniform maintenance allowance.

Then, at Christmas, they will receive a bonus of three months’ pay. Since April 2018 the Bank of Baroda had signalled its intention to close its operations in Guyana and moving on to another territory.
Gupta told the newspaper on Tuesday that the signing of the labour agreement and the banks pending sale of its Guyana-based subsidiary are separate issues.

He is hopeful that the bank’s decision will ultimately be to remain in Guyana.
Gupta expressed his pleasure in the cordial relations shared between all parties involved during the process leading up to the signing of the agreement. Delivering remarks on behalf of the workers, Persaud stated: “[The process] was very easy, nothing was too hard. They [the workers] all had their trust in me and they allowed me to bargain on their behalf.”

Meanwhile, Ogle commended the union and the bank for maintaining a good relationship which required no conciliation from the department.
“It shows that there is collective bargaining,” he said. “Some negotiations [the Department of] Labour has to intervene, sometimes we have to go to arbitration too. That is why I’m saying the relationship between you two is reasonable.”

He encouraged them to look at matters such as inflation and how oil will affect Guyana come 2021, therefore influencing how competitive the bank’s payments will need to be.
Speaking to the newspaper on the sidelines, the CCWU President said: “The workers felt that the bank is trying. They know that the bank is up for sale and the workers were concerned, trying to get international support from the Union International Network to help us to ensure that whoever is the new buyer also [takes on] the employees so that they can continue to have jobs.” He thanked Ogle for pointing out a list of changes the union and the bank should consider in their next round of negotiation. The Bank of Baroda is an Indian multinational for public sector banking and a financial services company.