Union leader strikes a tough stance for bank officials

Larry Broderick wants the Irish Bank Officials Association to be seen as a business union and plans to extend its membership beyond 18,000, writes Siobhán Creaton, Finance Correspondent.

Larry Broderick, the Irish Bank Officials Association's (IBOA's) general secretary, has put bank strikes back on the agenda.

At the end of July his association backed a 24-hour stoppage at Bank of Ireland's information technology division, ITSIS, in protest at the bank's plans to transfer them to US multinational Hewlett-Packard.

This week it appears that many key issues that have rankled with the more than 200 IBOA members affected may be resolved but Mr Broderick will not rule out another bank strike.

Many people still shudder at the memories of the bitter and prolonged dispute that crippled the Irish banking system and divided bank officials 11 years ago. Bankers who passed their picketing colleagues to go to work tend to be remembered although some have since been accepted back into the fold.

"The original strategy was to expel them. We then decided to take a broader view and said that if the people they had passed in 1992 supported their re-entry then they could come back," says Mr Broderick.

"A lot of people would look back on 1992 and see that as having been a totally bitter experience from the employers' point of view and from the union's point of view. I think on this particular one we managed to control it.

"This dispute was isolated to a certain section within Bank of Ireland and all of our members came out and supported the strike. You didn't have any people adopting management's stance which I think reflects the fact that our members don't trust the management at Bank of Ireland," he says.

The IBOA has a particularly fractious relationship with Bank of Ireland, the Republic's second biggest banking group. In recent years it has reached partnership agreements with AIB, National Irish Bank and most recently with Ulster Bank but has accused Bank of Ireland of being stuck in the Dark Ages.

"It has failed to take staff needs on board. It still sees the union as a threat and takes every opportunity to have a go at us. It doesn't understand that there is a bigger picture and that disappoints me. I would have felt that someone coming from National Australia Group, where Mike Soden, the bank's chief executive, came from, would have had a better understanding of the need to involve staff in change, but that hasn't materialised."

Mr Broderick hopes this dispute might act as a catalyst for change in the way Bank of Ireland interacts with the IBOA but he is not holding his breath. "It needs to change its whole approach."

Bank of Ireland's decision to outsource its information technology operations to HP follows similar initiatives by other financial institutions internationally, although the other major Irish banks have opted to retain these activities.

Many banks are now focusing on their core business, such as lending and providing banking services, preferring to let specialists handle areas such as information technology.

"I have a mixed view on outsourcing. I don't necessarily accept the business case. There is evidence of companies that have tried to outsource and haven't got the level of service and level of competency they expected. I want to see and understand the business case. If it stands up, the IBOA membership will address it once it can provide benefits for staff," he says.

The IBOA's tough stance at ITSIS is partly due to concerns that Bank of Ireland will increasingly outsource other non-core activities and seek to transfer other staff from the group.

It believes it is essential for it to establish an acceptable template that protects the job security and entitlements of its members and avoid further industrial disputes.

In 1988, the bank established a joint venture with Perot Systems to take over the operation of much of its information technology support systems. Mr Broderick says this was a fundamental mistake and one that has resulted in many of the problems that prompted staff to take to the picket line. "These are not staff problems but problems it created through a lack of investment, a lack of foresight and expertise," according to Mr Broderick.

"Employers sometimes take unions and staff for granted. I think what has happened in this instance is a group of staff who have been tremendously loyal to the bank for a long number of years, indeed in some cases they were more loyal to the bank in 1992 than they were to the IBOA, felt that no one had taken their interests on board. It is a sad reflection that the organisation seemed to have forgotten the role of the staff."

Mr Broderick wants the organisation to be viewed as a "business union" and has ambitions to greatly expand its membership beyond 18,000.

He says that if the Bank of Ireland and HP outsourcing agreement is finalised, that the IBOA intends to follow its members to their new non-unionised employer. It will be interesting to see how it fares on that front. It has plenty of other bones to pick with the banks, such as gender equality, particularly in relation to the promotion of women, and the growing frustration of younger members who were recruited on a lower pay-scale with restricted career development options.

"There should be greater opportunities for women to succeed in the banks. It would be fair to say that areas where women are promoted tend to be in the softer areas. That is changing but more work needs to be done.

"Some 70 per cent of our members are women yet it is still a very male occupied industry. If you go to the Institute of Bankers' annual dinner you might find yourself wondering who the token woman are. It is horrendous and does not reflect at all where the industry is at in terms of its make-up," says Mr Broderick.

Better pay and promotional opportunities will also have to be addressed for employees trapped in low paying jobs.

At a time when financial institutions are trimming costs to boost profitability, the IBOA itself is in a very healthy financial position and is often described as a "rich" trade union.

It has grand offices on St Stephen's Green in Dublin and owns three substantial premises along that street as well as an office in Belfast. The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, will shortly become its tenant in St Stephen's Green. It also has about €8 million tied up in a portfolio of shares.

Its headquarters houses two bars, a squash court and a snooker room and it hosts many social functions as a way to attract new members throughout the year.

"I wouldn't say that we are rich but we are in a sound financial situation. We're bankers. You would expect us to be prudent," he says.