Bank employees' unions warn of nationwide strike on Jan 27, services to hit for three days

New Delhi: Bank employees’ unions have warned of a nationwide strike on January 27 to press for the implementation of a five-day work week.

According to the unions grouped under the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), if the strike goes ahead, public sector bank operations will be affected for three consecutive days, since January 25 and 26 are already holidays.

Currently, bank staff have holidays on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month, as well as on Sundays, reported PTI.

UFBU noted that the remaining two Saturdays had been declared holidays by mutual agreement between the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and UFBU as part of the wage settlement reached in March 2024.

“It is regrettable that the government has not acted on our legitimate demand. There will be no loss of working hours because we have already consented to work an additional 40 minutes each day from Monday to Friday,” UFBU said in its statement.

The statement added that institutions such as the RBI, LIC, and GIC are already following a five-day work week, and markets such as foreign exchange, money markets, and stock exchanges also remain closed on Saturdays. Central and state government offices also do not function on Saturdays.

Therefore, it said, there is no justification for banks not to adopt a five-day work week.

The unions said they have decided to call for an all-India strike across all banks on January 27, 2026.

UFBU is a federation of nine major bank unions in the country, representing staff and officers in public sector banks and certain older private sector banks.

The statement also mentioned that the union’s social media campaign #5DayBankingNow has received 18,80,027 impressions and around 2,85,200 posts on X.