Bank strike 'fails to disrupt services'
The bank reported a trouble-free 24 hours amid concerns the strike would disrupt the bank's ATM and Banking365 services at a particularly busy period as customers sought to ensure they had sufficient cash to tide them over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The IBOA pickets at the bank's IT facility in Cabinteely, south Dublin, were supported by Amicus MSF staff in the BoI-owned ICS Building Society's information technology division, where 10 members are affected by the switch to outsourcing.
A total of 528 staff are going to be affected by the proposed agreement with Hewlett-Packard, which is worth €600 million over seven years.
Amicus MSF warned the union's one-day strike coinciding with the IBOA's action represented the first phase of industrial action on the matter. If the serious concerns of his members which mirrored those of the IBOA were not addressed, "we will engage in escalating action until satisfactory agreement is concluded."
BoI rejected IBOA's suggestion that the case go before a tribunal headed by independent arbitrator Phil Flynn. A union spokesman said they told management the union would defer its planned escalation if the bank put its talks with Hewlett-Packard on hold and allowed Mr Flynn to form a tribunal. "This could be sorted in a day," he added.
The bank pointed out Mr Flynn was chairman of the rival Bank of Scotland and was not acceptable to it as arbitrator. Management wants the issued to be decided by the Labour Court, arguing that the issue of outsourcing of IT services has wider implications for the economy.
In the absence of a resolution in the coming days, the IBOA spokesman said next Thursday's BoI executive committee meeting would decide if the dispute would escalate.
Bank spokesman David Holden clarified some of the details of the proposal. He said that under the proposal, the staff going to Hewlett-Packard would not be going on contract but as permanent, pensionable employees and would carry all the benefits they had in BoI, including full preservation of service and pension entitlements. He explained: "They have three years' protection against loss of earnings. For the first two years they have protection of the job, meaning they can't be moved out of the job.
"In the third year they have protection of earnings if for some reason people were made redundant at any point that year they'd be given the balance of their salary for that year. If at any point in the first three years they're made compulsorily redundant they go back to the bank," said Mr Holden.
"In other words, unlike any other member of staff in the Bank of Ireland Group, these people have a three-year job guarantee."
