Strike action by almost 300 staff at a Bank of Ireland subsidiary has been deferred after progress was made in talks between union leaders and bank management.
Staff at ITSIS in Cabinteely, Dublin, had planned 24-hour strike action tomorrow after its business was contracted out to Hewlett Packard in a €600 million deal.
Among other issues, the workers had been seeking a voluntary redundancy package and an extension of their employment for the duration of the seven-year contract with HP.
The dispute had not been expected to affect Bank of Ireland's branches.
Mr Larry Broderick, general secretary of the Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) said the strike action had been deferred to allow his members to consider fully the detailed proposals which emerged from the negotiations.
He was speaking following reconvened talks in Dublin today between Bank of Ireland, the IBOA and HP.
While acknowledging that some progress had been made on a number of key IBOA concerns, Mr Broderick said further progress was required on a number of key outstanding issues.
"In the interests of our members and customers, IBOA propose deferring tomorrow's 24 hour stoppage to enable us carry out an exhaustive ballot of our members and for our negotiating team to seek further clarification on a number of outstanding and unresolved issues."
The results of the ballot are expected on Friday evening.
In a document agreed today, Bank of Ireland confirmed that no compulsory redundancies will take place for a period of two years following the transfer to HP.
It also agreed to guarantee a further one year's salary in the event of compulsory redundancy taking place.
However, the bank said it was not in a position to arrange a "passport" back to Bank of Ireland in the event that ITSIS staff are later made redundant by HP.