THE executive of the Irish Bank Officials' Association is to meet today to sanction a strike ballot by 1,100 members at Ulster Bank branches throughout the Republic. At the weekend, delegates to the union's biennial conference in Dublin called for "whatever resources are necessary to be given to Ulster Bank colleagues in resisting management proposals to introduce new salary structures which would freeze the salaries of many employees.
Under the new structures, the top of the salary scale for many employees would be £20,500, instead of the current level of £24,000. Staff earning more than they are considered worth under the new job evaluation system would have their salaries frozen.
The Ulster Bank dispute is one of a number brewing in the banking sector. At Bank of Ireland talks on performance related pay have stalled.
Referring to the Ulster Bank dispute in his speech to delegates, the IBOA general secretary, Mr Ciaran Ryan, told the conference that the Ulster Bank made £136 million profit last year. The executive directors had awarded themselves salaries of £154,000, a 20 per cent increase on the previous year.
Members' terms of employment were under constant pressure throughout the banking sector, he said. "If our colleagues in Ulster Bank have to man the picket lines in May they will be manning them for all of us and should get your full support," he told delegates.
If the bank proved unwilling to re-enter talks, Mr Ryan said, he envisaged strike action beginning in four weeks.
Calling on delegates to pass an emergency motion in support of their Ulster Bank colleagues, the assistant general secretary of the association, Mr Larry Broderick, said that staff had been under "tremendous pressure for at least four months to accept the changes. They were told by the bank that if they voted to reject the proposals they were voting for industrial action."