Staff at the Bank of Scotland (Ireland) have voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking industrial action.
Unite trade union said that 94 per cent of members balloted voted in favour of action over the failure of BoSI management to provide clarity on the establishment of a separate company to handle the winding down of the bank’s operations in Ireland.
The action would affect operations at BoSI offices in Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Sligo as well as its head office in Dublin. Unite has 600 members working for the bank.
BoSI said it was disappointed at the union’s decision. It said it had invited Unite to continue consultations.
On August 20th, Lloyds Banking Group announced plans to close BoSI. This will involve the loss of 40 jobs and closing the business to deposits, current accounts and new lending.
The bank said it would appoint an “independent service company” to manage the wind-down of its €33 billion loan book over the coming years. This would involve the transfer of 850 workers from BoSI to the new entity.
Unite said the scale of the action would be determined in the coming days and that it would be of a nature that would “cause significant disruption to the management of the bank”.
“The Bank of Scotland (Ireland) management have continually sought to sugar its closure announcements with promises and undertakings,” Unite regional organiser Brian Gallagher said.
“At no point though have they come forward with proposals to the workers on critical issues including terms of secondment to the new company that will manage the winding down of the bank’s interests in an orderly fashion as is required by law; redundancy issues, a pension scheme deficit that must be addressed and the question of equal treatment for all staff.”
Mr Gallagher said the union would make itself open for meaningful negotiations but that if this did not occur the action would commence next Wednesday, October 20th.
BoSI said the union had called for members to engage in a day even though consultations between both parties were ongoing and in spite of the agreed process of exhausting all avenues, including a referral to the Labour Relations Commission, before embarking on any industrial action.
The bank said it was fully committed to meaningful consultations with Unite.
“Bank of Scotland (Ireland) believes there is no justification for industrial action in the circumstances prevailing today, and the bank is disappointed by Unite’s decision to encourage colleagues to take industrial action,” it said in a statement.
