The Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) has voted against accepting the proposed national social partnership agreement.

The terms of the Sustaining Progress deal were rejected by 95 per cent of the IBOA after its executive committee recommended this outcome.

This is the first time the association has voted to reject a proposed partnership agreement.

In a statement yesterday, IBOA general secretary Mr Larry Broderick said his members believed the pay deal did little to tackle the problem of low pay in the banking industry.

Bank officials are also concerned about threats to trade unionism posed by the deal regarding the introduction of binding arbitration and the lack of significant movement on union recognition.

"The 7 per cent increase over 18 months falls far short of the reasonable expectations of our members who work in an industry which last year made over €3 billion in profits, as recent results have shown.

"In real terms it means a 3.5 per cent increase over 12 months, which will be less than inflation which is currently running at 5.1 per cent and will result in the erosion of bank officials' real pay position."

He added that the agreement also failed to deliver anything of substance as flat rate pay increases had not been provided for.

Mr Broderick accused some major banks of trying to row back on the rights of workers to be represented by their union of choice and engage in major change programmes involving the outsourcing of jobs to non-unionised companies.

"In the IBOA'S view, this is a bad deal for the trade union movement, particularly those of us operating in the private sector," Mr Broderick said.