IDBI Bank employees and their family members took en masse to Twitter on Sunday to continue with their protest against the move to dilute the Centre’s stake in the bank, as announced in the Budget.
The tweets started after the intranet blog of the MD and CEO was closed for comments on Saturday after the staff members wrote some 7,500 protest notes post the dilution announcement.
For two hours around Sunday noon, #saveidbibank was in the top five trending list. Tweets were sent to the pages of the Prime Minister, the PMO, and the Finance Minister, among a list of top policymakers.
Other hash tags included #stopprivatisationofidbibank, #arrestvijaymallya, #recovernpas, #dontsellindia, #dontsellfamilysilver, and #PSBisnational asset.
Being the youngest and tech-savvy public sector bank with an average employee age of 32, it was natural for the staff to take to Twitter, according to a representative of the employee union.
In a way, it helped them reach out to the world at large as the intranet blog of the MD and CEO limited the reach to one another while logging into the company’s private network.
Twitter also helped family members of the staff to tweet against the move to privatise the bank, the representative said.
According to him, this marked a first in trade union members taking the technology route to protest against what he called a ‘wrong policy decision’ that ‘threatened’ their job prospects.