The trade union representing Ulster Bank workers has urged senior management at the financial institution to revise its restructuring plan in order to save more jobs.
Trade unions and senior management at Ulster Bank held talks today after the lender yesterday announced plans to cut 950 jobs. Some 600 staff in the Republic will lose their jobs by the end of the year, while the balance of the redundancies are in Northern Ireland.
The IBOA has engaged a firm of independent consultants to challenge the bank’s business plan and unions are seeking the same redundancy package agreed under a 2009 deal, which saw workers receive an average of seven weeks’ pay per year of service on top of two weeks’ statutory pay.
Following the meeting today the union said that while it acknowledged that the bank continued to face major difficulties arising from the impaired loans authorised during the property boom, it could not accept that the solution proposed by management was in the long-term interests of the bank or its customers and staff.
“We outlined the profound sense of shock, anger and distress which the Bank’s proposals had caused to staff – as well as the anxiety among customers who had contacted the union in the wake of the bank’s announcement,” said IBOA general secretary Larry Broderick.
He added the bank's statement that it will seek to avoid compulsory redundancies did not provide staff with the necessary assurance required.
The IBOA is to seek a meeting with the Government to discuss the developing crisis in Irish banking in light of the Ulster Bank announcement and with further significant job losses pending in AIB, IBRC and Bank of Ireland.
A black day on the jobs front yesterday also saw Diageo announce plans to close the country’s oldest operating brewery in Kilkenny as part of a restructuring plan that will also result in the closure of its brewery in Dundalk with a total loss of 99 jobs.
Further job losses were confirmed yesterday in Dublin where one of the capital’s best known hostels, Isaac’s, near Busáras, has been put into liquidation. The hostel employed 71 people in 2010 and twice that a year earlier.
In Waterford, more than 30 jobs are to go at Honeywell Measurex as the company, which makes parts for the computer industry, restructures its operations. On a more positive note, Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton announced the creation of 200 jobs in Waterford city this morning.
