The Minister for Labour Affairs, Mr Fahy, has urged financial institutions to embrace partnership principles in their dealings with staff.
Addressing delegates at the Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) biennial conference in Galway yesterday, Mr Fahy praised the agreement reached between the union and the Republic's biggest bank, AIB, which includes the provision of a 35-hour week.
"The commitment by AIB and the IBOA in the partnership process over recent years has already paid off by way of a shared understanding of the issues which will impact on the success of AIB and the means by which the necessary change and transformation agenda will be met," he said.
Under the terms of the agreement with AIB, there was a commitment that there would be no voluntary redundancies for a three-year period and that branches across the Republic would not be closed.
The agreement is in marked contrast to the difficulties being experienced at Bank of Ireland, where staff at its information technology division have balloted for strike action following a decision to outsource its IT functions to Hewlett Packard.
IBOA's general secretary, Mr Larry Broderick, said these staff feel "ignored, mistreated, lied to and exploited". He said they had voted for industrial action up to and including all-out strike to prevent the transfer of this business without full negotiation and agreement with the IBOA.
Earlier this year, the union won an appeal to the Labour Court to grant staff at Bank of Ireland's Banking 365 the right to have IBOA recognition in negotiations on pay and conditions of employment. Over the past two years, some 1,000 staff have left the Bank of Ireland group as part of a voluntary redundancy scheme.
Members at Ulster Bank, which is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, have noted a deterioration in the relationship between the bank and the trade union over the past 12 months.
Having secured an agreement under its Horizon change programme and extended recognition for collective bargaining purposes for managers, staff have witnessed an "arrogant new management style", according to Mr Broderick. He summed up the bank's approach as: "Ignore the staff, ignore the union, impose change."
Some 2,000 Ulster Bank staff have signed a petition calling on the bank to recognise the trade union, to resolve outstanding differences through the negotiating procedures, to honour existing agreements and to commit to negotiation on future agreements.
"Failure to accept these principles will mean industrial action," Mr Broderick warned.
