IBOA meeting over pay threat

THE Irish Bank Officials Association is to hold a special delegates conference of its Ulster Bank members next Saturday to consider proposals by the company to cut pay scales.

The bank is understood to be seeking to reduce the existing salary at the top of the pay scale from £24,000 to £16,000. Existing staff would be "red circled".

In other words, their current salary would be frozen until the new rates caught up with them, through national or sectoral pay rises.

Last night, the general secretary of the IBOA, Mr Ciaran Ryan, said he was deeply perturbed at the proposals, "which will set pay levels back ten years.

"Staff are dismayed that, having contributed to the Ulster Bank's £120 million profit last year, the only thanks they get is to be told that they are overpaid.

"The Ulster Bank and all other banks owe it to the national interest to maintain good class employment which contributes to the local economy", he said.

"The bank's terms mean that employees could have their pay frozen for the next ten years. This would be a blatant breach of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work."

A spokesman for the bank said that it had entered discussions with the IBOA on the basis of confidentiality and was not prepared to comment. The National Westminster Bank, which owns Ulster Bank, made £1.75 billion last year.

Meanwhile, limited progress was reported in talks to avert industrial action at Irish Life over the demotion of over 30 sales managers.