Union to resist Ulster Bank’s national insurance move

The Irish Bank Officials Association has said it will resist an attempt by Ulster Bank's senior management in Belfast to pass on a £1 million increase in the employer's national insurance costs to 1,500 members of the bank's defined benefit (DB) pension scheme in Northern Ireland.

The IBOA said that as part of changes to state pensions due next month, the UK government is altering its approach to DB schemes with the result that Ulster Bank’s national insurance employer contributions will increase by around £1 million a year.

The union said the bank’s management wants to pass this cost directly to staff who are members of its DB scheme – by requiring them to pay an extra 2 per cent of their salary in two stages. An extra 1 per cent would be due in October 2016 with another 1 per cent payable a year later.

These additional charges would come on top of increases in the employees’ contribution towards national insurance costs for DB scheme members that are due to come into effect in April, the IBOA said.

"By imposing this additional burden on its workers, Ulster Bank would effectively wipe out the modest pay rises secured by our members recently," the IBOA's general secretary Larry Broderick said.

"Our members in Northern Ireland consider this to be totally unacceptable. It represents a very inauspicious start to the move towards closer integration with [the UK business of] RBS. "

In response , a spokesperson for RBS said: “Reforms made to defined benefit pensions mean that the costs of our own scheme have risen. As a result, RBS is proposing to increase the cost of being a member of the scheme. The bank will be consulting on this proposal with affected staff and employee representatives.”

The IBOA is co-ordinating its opposition to its British counterpart Unite, which is campaigning against a similar approach being taken towards some 27,000 RBS staff.

RBS separated Ulster Bank's operations in Northern Ireland and the Republic into separate entities last year with the business in the north now aligned with RBS and NatWest in the UK.