Employees of India’s biggest public-sector lender — State Bank of India — are set to go on a two-day nationwide strike on May 25 and 26, 2026, to escalate long-pending demands such as employees’ rights, fair working conditions, and protect the interests of both staff and customers.
Citing administrative neglect and what it described as a continued disregard for the employee concerns, the strike has been called by the All India State Bank of India Staff Federation (AISBISF) through a circular issued on May 2, 2026.
In the circular, the body has alleged that the bank management is implementing anti-employee policies, impacting the institution’s backbone. According to the notification, if either of the scheduled dates for the strike falls on a holiday, then the protest will be rescheduled to May 27.
“They (the policies) undermine job security, erode dignity in the workplace, and compromise the broader social responsibility that Public Sector banks are meant to uphold,” the employees said in the circular.
The agitation centres on a dispute over what the union describes as an increasing reliance on outsourcing permanent jobs. The federation has alleged that this shift is replacing stable and dignified employment with more temporary and contractual arrangements. It further claims that such practices reduce job security for workers and may also raise concerns around customer data handling, citing limited accountability among outsourced personnel.
The AISBISF highlights a nearly three-decade-long freeze on recruiting messengers. The freeze has vanished an entire cadre while reducing opportunities for underprivileged sections of the society, it claims.
What did the federation demand?
The employee body listed 16 key demands in the circular, and now it seeks them to be fulfilled by the lender’s management. These include:
- Recruitment of Messengers
- Recruitment of Armed Guards
- Change of Pension Fund Manager option to NPS Employees
- Inter Circle Transfers to employees joined from 2019 onwards
- Stop Outsourcing of Permanent Jobs
- Recruitment of Adequate Staff
- Parity Issue in State Bank of India
- Review of Career Progression Scheme
- Notional 8th Stagnation Increment to 10th Bipartite Retirees
- Physician Consultation Charges w.e.f 15.07.2024
- Improvement in Medical Reimbursement Scheme
- Add all pay components to the pension of 7th BPS retirees since retirement
- Resolve HRMS issues
- Appointment of Workmen Employee Director
- Appointment of PF Trustee Nominee
- Stop Mis-selling in the name of Cross-Selling
Planned programmes ahead of strike on May 25, 26
Ahead of the nationwide strike scheduled for May 25 and 26, the federation has announced a series of protest activities. These include lunch time demonstrations and withdrawal of extra co-operation on May 5, followed by a social media campaign on May 6.
Other actions include a press meet atlocal head offices (LHOs) and administrative office (AO) centres on May 7, and silent sit-in programmes at all LHO/AO/RBO centres on May 8, 2026.
On May 11, the employees will hold centralised lunchtime demonstrations at all LHO/AO/RBO district headquarters centres. On May 18, they will hold dharna at all LHO/AO centres, and submit a Memorandum to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on May 19.
Ahead of the planned two-day strike, the SBI employees will on May 21 submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to the circular posted on X (formerly Twitter) today.
