Bank chiefs want flexibility in fixing wages

Public sector banks need to move away from industry-level wage negotiation, said Dr A.K. Khandelwal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bank of Baroda. “We need to dismantle the existing structure. There is no law that restricts us to determine compensation packages at the bank level but we need to persuade the government to permit it,” he said. “We cannot have a standardised approach for measurement of performance,” he added. Mr T.S. Bhattacharya, Managing Director, State Bank of India, said that Government rules were restricting the incentives that could be provided to employees. “We have a totally redundant system. To attract the right talent to my treasury department for instance, I need to pay more,” said Mr M.V. Nair, Chairman and Managing Director, Union Bank. He also felt that unions may not be a stumbling block for restructuring packages based on performance. Another issue that came up in the panel discussion, was the ‘age factor’. Mr Haseeb A. Drabu, Chairman and CEO, The Jammu and Kashmir Bank, said that the age-wise distribution of public sector employees showed that it was on a higher side. “This is a structural constraint and the private sector has an advantage here.” pan>