Bank faces disruptive action

BANK of Scotland Ireland will today receive official notice of disruptive industrial action by 600 of its staff over the bank’s handling of its wind-down of its Irish operations.

While the union said it has yet to decide what form the action will take, other than that it will cause “significant disruption” to management, the bank says it has been told the workers will engage in a “day of inaction”.

Unite said its members in BOSI voted 94% in favour of action over “the failure of bank management to provide any clarity on the establishment of a separate company to handle the winding down of the bank’s operations in Ireland”.

“The extent of the industrial action will be determined over the coming days,” said Unite official Brian Gallagher. Management had sought to “sugar” its closure announcements with promises and undertakings but had not created proposals on issues such as secondment to the new company, redundancy and a pension scheme deficit.

BOSI management said it was disappointed that Unite had called for “members to engage in a day of inaction” even though consultations between both parties were ongoing.

“In view of the announcement the bank has invited Unite to continue consultations and to commit to exhausting the agreed procedures up to and including referral to the LRC and Labour Court before any industrial action would be taken,” it said.