EBS staff vote to strike over non-payment of festive bonuses

MANAGEMENT AT the former EBS building society will remain in talks with trade union Unite in a bid to prevent a strike that could ultimately see pickets placed on its parent, AIB.

Staff at the society are planning a one-day strike next Tuesday in protest at the refusal of the Department of Finance to sanction a long-standing Christmas bonus paid to all employees.

More than 300 Unite members in EBS voted overwhelmingly yesterday in favour of industrial action. Regional officer Colm Quinlan confirmed that notice had been served on the company and said members initially planned a one-day strike for December 20th.

Mr Quinlan said if the issue was not resolved, staff would escalate their industrial action in the new year and would consider picketing EBS’s parent, AIB, as part of this.

EBS said in a statement yesterday that it “will continue to engage with Unite” to see if anything could be done to prevent the action.

The bonus, which amounts to one month’s pay, has been paid to all building society staff for the last 45 years and is part of their contract of employment. The company is not paying it this year after the Department of Finance – which has to approve bonus payments made by all State-controlled banks – refused to allow it.

However, the payment is being made to senior management who exercised an option several years ago to change the structure of their pay package so that the “bonus” was incorporated into their regular pay terms.

No such option was offered to ordinary staff, Unite said yesterday. As a result, while senior managers had received an extra €7,000 this month, staff on as little as €20,000 a year were being refused net payments of €1,000, Mr Quinlan said.

The 300 staff who have been refused the bonus earn an average of €30,000 a year.

Mr Quinlan argued that the State had frequently justified large golden handshakes to departing banking executives and civil servants on contractual grounds, “but when it comes to the contractual rights of ordinary workers, they have to go out and demand them”.

EBS merged with the State-owned AIB in July. AIB raised the payment of the bonus with the department after the building society had told staff that they would be receiving it as usual.

Concerns over performance-linked bonuses paid to staff at the AIB and elsewhere led to the Government saying that the Department of Finance must first approve all bonuses paid by State-owned banks.