UNION OFFICIALS acting for 950 staff at Ulster Bank facing redundancy in the latest round of job cuts will seek the same severance deal as employees who left under its first wave of job losses in 2009.
Ulster Bank, which is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, confirmed yesterday it was cutting a further 950 jobs – 600 in the Republic and 350 in Northern Ireland – out of a workforce of 6,000.
The Irish Bank Officials’ Association plans to seek the same deal agreed with the 1,000 staff who left the British-owned bank, despite parting packages for bank staff across the industry becoming less favourable since then.
Larry Broderick, general secretary of the IBOA, described the scale of the latest round of job losses as “breathtaking”, saying it was a major shock to staff.
Employees were offered an average of seven weeks’ pay for every year of service on top of the two weeks’ statutory pay under the 2009 deal that initially targeted 750 job cuts, but which later rose to 1,000 due to the interest among staff.
Ulster Bank declined to comment on the terms of severance that would be offered ahead of discussions with the IBOA.
The redundancies were blamed on the continued economic deterioration in Ireland and overseas.
The bank is seeking savings of £50 million (€60 million) by reducing its payroll and a further £15 million by cutting other expenses, including travel, entertainment and marketing costs.
The redundancies are to be spread over two years but the bank will seek to implement most of the cuts in the second half of this year.
The bank has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies as this will depend on the level of take-up among staff.
Mr Broderick has said negotiations on the severance pay may take up to three months.
The union wants the bank to consider alternatives to redundancy and to protect the remaining 5,000 staff at the bank.
Siptu, which represents more than 200 staff, has described the job cuts as “unacceptably high” and plans to challenge any compulsory redundancies or outsourcing.
Ulster Bank is shedding 446 jobs at its retail banking unit and 184 in its corporate banking business. At least 318 jobs have been specifically targeted within the head office in Dublin. These include 155 jobs in the chief operating office, 60 jobs in credit and market risk and 58 in finance.
A further 24 positions will go within the division that manages the bank’s involvement in the British asset protection scheme, 10 in the regulatory risk division and six jobs in corporate affairs.
Just five positions are earmarked to be cut in the global restructuring group, which manages the bank’s problem loans.
RBS, which is 83 per cent owned by the UK government, is cutting a further 3,500 job cuts at its investment banking division.
The IBOA has estimated that there could be a further 4,000 job cuts across the banking sector, including 2,000 losses announced by AIB but yet to be identified.
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said that he had no advance knowledge that Ulster Bank intended to cut 950 jobs from its Irish operations.
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn told the Dáil yesterday he had “every confidence” in the ability of the IBOA to negotiate redundancy packages for staff.
