• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By Andy McCue, 21 August 2003 16:55

NEWS The Bank of Ireland faces being "totally closed down" by strikes if staff reject an agreement negotiated between the unions and the bank over a $600m IT outsourcing deal with Hewlett-Packard. After weeks of negotiations and strike action, independent arbitrator Kieran Mulvey this week secured agreement from the bank and the Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) on pensions rights, severance pay and union recognition for the 500 staff affected by the deal. The IBOA is now meeting with its representatives to put the proposals to them ahead of a final ballot on whether to accept them, the result of which will be announced on 1 September. But although the IBOA believes it has achieved the best deal it could for those who will transfer to HP or lose their jobs, there is deep concern that members will still reject the deal and instead choose to escalate industrial action. A spokesman for the IBOA told silicon.com that job security is still the main issue worrying staff, especially in the light of poor financial results from HP this week. "There is a lot of unease about it among the ordinary members, especially those who have worked for the bank for a long-time and thought they had jobs for life. That is the achilles heel. If they don't accept the deal it will be total war with the bank," he said. The spokesman said it would be a difficult situation if members rejected the deal as it would probably mean an escalation of strike action against the bank that could "totally close it down". Concessions that arbitrator Mulvey has agreed include a one-off transfer payment and job security for two years for those who transfer to HP with an option for redeployment within the bank for five years after that, as well as some union recognition and the protection of pension rights. Bank of Ireland entered into exclusive discussions with HP in April for the seven-year contract that will see HP responsible for managing the bank's desktops, servers, mainframes, networks and printers. If it is completed, the deal will cover the bank's main Dublin-based IT systems and its Bristol and West operations in the UK. Speaking to silicon.com in May, Carlo Magistrelli, VP and general manager for HP Services in Europe, said the Bank of Ireland deal was important to HP, especially given the bank is "such an important social player in that community". The Bank of Ireland did not respond to request for comment at the time of publishing.