Unite: EBS payment 'not a bonus'

Protests are taking place at a number of EBS offices around the country today as part of a pay dispute.

Workers at the building society say the company is withholding a 13th-month payment which has been paid to staff every year for the last 45 years.

The one-day work stoppage is affecting branches in Dublin and Limerick.

Colm Quinlan from the UNITE trade union, which represents staff, is rejecting management claims that the payment amounts to a bonus.

Mr Quinlan said: "EBS management are contradicting themselves because they paid this in 2009 and our annual accounts say no bonus was paid.

"This is a contractual payment, this is a smokescreen, this is not a bonus. There is a bonus in place that we are entitled to in normal years, a gain share bonus, but that hasn't been paid for the past three years."