A seven per cent pay rise is to be sought by bank officials in the first of a series of headline-setting claims expected in the absence of a national pay deal.
Higher increases, of up to 10 per cent, will be demanded for lower-paid workers in the banking and financial services sector, the Irish Bank Officials' Association has decided.
It will also seek concessions on working hours, gain-sharing and annual holiday periods in a claim to be submitted to the banks this month.
Other unions in the private sector are also proceeding with pay claims, in spite of continuing efforts to restart talks on a national agreement.
Officers of the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, which represents more than 30,000 mainly craft workers in the private and semi-state sectors, meet today to draw up a strategy on pay claims.
In general, unions are likely to seek increases of 6 per cent over 12 months, to keep pace with the anticipated rate of inflation. This approach was agreed at a meeting on Monday of the private sector committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and is expected to be approved by the executive council of Congress next week.
As reported in The Irish Times yesterday, the committee also decided that any attempt by employers to impose a national pay pause would be met by a rolling series of two-day general strikes.
IBEC, the employers' body, says a six-month pay pause is necessary to restore competitiveness lost by Irish businesses in recent years. In talks which broke down last month, it proposed the pay pause as part of an 18-month deal to include a phased pay increase totalling 5 per cent.
The IBOA's demand for a 7 per cent increase over 12 months, with higher amounts for lower-paid members, illustrates the extent of the gap between both sides.
Mr Larry Broderick, the association's general secretary, said such an increase was required to compensate members for an erosion in living standards.
The figure, agreed at an executive meeting of the IBOA on Tuesday, had also taken into account the banks' profitability. Flat rate increases of between €1,800 and €2,000 would be sought for members on lower pay, he said, which equated to increases of between 9 and 10 per cent.
Mr Broderick said IBOA members would "have a decision to make" if a national agreement was reached, but would certainly not settle for an increase of 5 per cent, or even 6.5 per cent as had been mooted, over 18 months.
In any event, he believed, a national pay deal was unlikely. "My own assessment is that the gap is far too wide."
Both the Bank of Ireland and AIB declined to comment on the IBOA claim. The bank officials' current pay agreement expires on May 1st.
Behind-the-scenes contacts aimed at renewing the national talks continued yesterday, but no meeting is expected until tomorrow at the earliest. In the meantime, private-sector unions are anxious to proceed with claims at local level.
In an attempt to co-ordinate the unions' position, guidelines to be circulated to all unions were drawn up at Monday's meeting of the ICTU private sector committee.
The guidelines, seen by The Irish Times, propose that claims "be progressed immediately irrespective of continuing speculation about the relaunching of national pay talks".
Pay claims, they add, should be for "about 6 per cent" over 12 months, but should be "sufficiently flexible to allow unions to promote demands for additional increases to guarantee workers a share in the prosperity and growth of their enterprises, as appropriate". Similar guidelines for the public sector are expected to be adopted when the executive council of Congress meets to consider the committee's proposals next Wednesday.
