ABOUT 600 members of the Unite trade union are to place pickets at the headquarters of Bank of Ireland in Baggot Street and at the ICS Building Society head office in the IFSC next Tuesday, as part of a one-day strike over the implementation of a stock issue scheme.
Pickets will also be placed at the head office of New Ireland on Dawson Street, Dublin.
The finance union IBOA has already said its 6,000 members at Bank of Ireland will stage a one-day stoppage next week as part of the same row.
The industrial action by both unions is being timed to coincide with the annual general meeting of Bank of Ireland on Tuesday.
Unite said yesterday that there was 91 per cent support in a ballot for industrial action up to and including full strike action at Bank of Ireland over a broken agreement to pay a 6 per cent staff stock issue.
It said that in May the bank had announced, unilaterally, that it was halving the agreed staff stock issue for 2008 from 6 per cent to 3 per cent of salary.
The industrial action by Unite and the IBOA was yesterday strongly criticised by the employers' group Ibec.
It described the planned action by the unions as "a throwback to 1970s-style industrial relations, which has no place in the modern Ireland".
Unions have said that as part of a productivity deal agreed in 2005, staff were to receive up to 6 per cent of salary in stock and a reduction of the working week, in return for co-operation with major change.
Unite said this programme had led to more than 2,000 job losses and cost savings which generated a 48 per cent growth in profit before tax between 2005 and 2008.
However, Bank of Ireland has said that the amount paid out under the scheme was based on real growth in underlying earnings per share as well as cost-savings achieved under its transformation programme.
