In banking industry also, it is necessary to know the genesis and growth of trade union movement and this alone will visualize the need for forming National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW). During the Second World War (1939-1945) there was a rise in the prices of commodities which caused considerable hardship to persons having a fixed income. Efforts were made by various organisations to improve the living conditions of workmen. Banking being an All-India industry efforts were made by the workmen employed in banks to unite together for the purpose of improving their living conditions. On 20th April 1946, a federation of various unions of workmen working in various establishments of Banks throughout the country was formed with a view to tackle the problems of labour in the banking industry on an all India basis and thus All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) was started, as a non-political genuine trade union federation by Shri Ramesh Chakraborti of Bank of India, as its Founder General Secretary and Shri K C Neogi of Central Bank of India as President, at University Institute Hall Kolkata. Thereafter, Shri Prabhat Kar was the General Secretary from 1953 to 1980 (who was also Member of Parliament for 10 long years from 1957 to 1967) and Shri Tarakeshwar Chakraborti from November 1980 to May 2003 and now Shri C H Venkatachalam is the General Secretary. The appalling exploitation and suppressive extermination of Bank employees of our country by the Managements awakened the Bank employees from their age long lethargy. Aroused by the potential power of united expression they started to organise. Conscious of the failure of the labour struggle due to the political interference in the trade union movement they formed among themselves trade union free from political and parochial interests.
The dawn of independence saw growing trade union consciousness among the Bank employees. Emboldened by the initial success of their united struggles, they embarked upon a series of mass movements to end the economic depravity and to secure decent social conditions. But, as years passed certain political ideologies which are alien to healthy and independent trade union movement started encroaching upon the trade union structure of the Bank employees. A few individuals, who were not Bank employees, associated themselves with the trade union organisation of Bank employees and developed a vested interest by acting as instruments of political parties. It was however captured step by step, as if unknowingly by the Communist Party of India. The seizure has been complete and the iron grip of the Communist Party over Union machinery was made in such a fashion that one will have to break that Association rather than infiltrate and capture from within. The process of seizure was so typical of communist infiltration. The power of the bank employees to think and act independently suffered a major casualty. The democratic functioning of their trade unions which is the core of genuine trade unionism was systematically eliminated by totalitarian tactics by a few individuals in AIBEA committed to the communist movement. Every success of bankmen which is the result of their trade union struggle was exploited to perpetuate and glorify the political image of the communists. The trade union struggles were increasingly organized to further their political interest which is unworthy of a genuine trade union movement and which would result in undermining the general interest of the employees. These are but a few symptoms of the evil that has crept into the bank employees’ trade union movement of which bankmen are kept in dark by AIBEA by systematic hammering of feelings of the bank employees through the euphoria of class hatred which is again a communist method. The bank employees were made to believe only in what the AIBEA and its affiliates circularize on the lines of a committed and controlled press. The bankmen in AIBEA who are suppressed of their freedom of expression and deprived of democratic functioning of their trade union consciousness are being increasingly made tools in the hands of the totalitarian methods of AIBEA’s leadership. Having failed to impose the political designs on all the bank employees, the AIBEA has also indulged in trade union bossism among the ranks to win over the employees who do not agree with them. The symptoms of this trend were apparent. The communist style of running a trade union is diametrically opposed to the democratic trade unionism. Any trade union action is timed and directed by the communists for the furtherance of their ideology. For them, any agitation is an end in itself and not a means to achieve an end. They exploit the miseries of the employees, instigating them to embark upon agitations, unmindful of the utility or otherwise of the agitations and any success is utilised by them to glorify the image of communist movement. A common bank employee was thus compelled to subscribe to a style of trade union and political philosophy which is alien to him while he was in the process of protecting his interest and fighting for a better deal for himself and his co-worker.
The most clear exposure of the communist influence over AIBEA came in the wake of Chinese Aggression over India in 1962. The AIBEA General Secretary’s report of Shri Prabhat Kar covering this period contained a significant omission of this event. This was in sharp contrast with the practice of AIBEA to cover even remote international events like the Vietnamese war. Shri B G Gour then representing the Vidarbha Bank Employees Federation (VBEF) as a AIBEA unit made a sharp attack against this omission. The office bearers of AIBEA tried to justify this omission by explaining away the incident as a border conflict capable of more than one interpretation from the view of International Labour and showed the audacity of calling Chinese troupe as Liberation Army. Thereafter, a systematic drive was taken to eliminate Shri B G Gour from VBEF leadership by all types of tactics. Failing in this attempt, the All India Communist leadership went to the extent of declaring the regular elections of the VBEF as void. They insisted with all their might against Bankers to make the latter recognise a nominated group headed by the noted communist Mr. N K Swamy as the official AIBEA for VBEF. This is a well tested communist technique to nip in bud all democratic trends. They have persistently followed it in P&T and other establishments to disallow the nationalists from holding any provincial office when the otherwise democratic processes would have allowed them to do so. This made the break-away group of VBEF headed by Shri B G Gour inevitability.
In the year 1971, when the AIBEA celebrated its Silver Jubilee at Delhi, the political line followed by AIBEA was made visible in Red Colour, Mr. S A Dange, the Chairman of the C P I addressed the gathering as a Chief spokesman. Though the then Prime Minister Smt Indira Gandhi declined to honour the invitation, Mr. Mohan Kumar Mangalam, Ex-CPI State Secretary, Madras graced the occasion by his presence. The entire section of Nationalist Trade Union movement was conspicuous by its near-absence. The fraternal delegates coming from inter-national communist world were mostly those from countries within the Communist bloc or their satellites or Communist bank unions like AIBEA. For all those who can see, the shadow of Communist influence over the entire gathering was visible and complete.
And yet there are some Bank employees, patriotic at heart, who are continuing today to finance and support the AIBEA believing it still to be their old cherished non-political genuine trade union. Most of these employees take very little part in day-to-day trade union work or in shaping the policy of AIBEA. Like all other communist trade unions AIBEA is a leader-dependent union fashioned like an inverted triangle. Its base of decision making is not the membership but the leadership. Its sanction flow not from the democratic mandate of its constitutes, but from the text books on communism. If the leadership can whistle out a strike without the members knowing its reason de-etre the office of the leader is taken as fulfilled. The party can trust such a leader to usher in a destructive process because the concept of a Nation-building endevour has been made foreign to his followers.
As it happens in all AIBEA-conducted negotiations(as evidenced, for example, in the Second Bipartite Settlement) the bank employees are given only one version of things on the lines of a controlled press of a totalitarian regime. This helps to keep the employees in the dark about the true character of the AIBEA leadership. Since we are sure that a stage has now reached when the Nation will suffer immense loss if the Bank Employees continue to finance and support the AIBEA. And, since there is a necessity to enlighten the passive Bank Employees about the ways of communist leadership of AIBEA to misutilise, by subtle means, their strength for bringing a ruin to Nation, Industry and finally even to Labour.