Bank of Ireland is threatened with a damaging strike following a vote for industrial action by Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) members in protest at a rationalisation plan.
The vote was passed with 83 per cent of IBOA members in Bank of Ireland voting to strike. The union today served two weeks' notice of the action.
The dispute centres on the bank's decision to outsource a €56 million information technology contract to Hewlett Packard. The bank plans to outsource IT functions, currently operated by a wholly owned subsidiary, ITSIS (IT Systems and Infrastructure Services).
The union claims this deal could be worth up to €600 million over seven years.
It is understood its decision to outsource IT operations stems from the abandonment last year of a proposed joint-venture project between Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks to merge their IT infrastructural services.
ITSIS is based mainly in Cabinteely, Co Dublin, with smaller elements elsewhere in the capital. It employs about 300 IT specialists.
Mr Larry Broderick, general secretary of the IBOA, said union members had taken the step to support industrial action to prevent the outsourcing of their jobs to Hewlett Packard by Bank of Ireland.
He said it was "totally unacceptable that an organisation like Bank of Ireland, earning massive profits in excess of €1 billion per annum, with most of that figure earned in this country, should treat its IT staffs' future with such disregard".
The IBOA and Bank of Ireland management will meet next Tuesday 22nd April.
A comment from Bank of Ireland was not immediately available this afternoon.
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