The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, has indicated that bank staff could be entitled to compensation for the extra workload caused by the euro changeover, but has urged firm adherence to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF).
The Minister made her comments as members of the Irish Bank Officials' Association (IBOA) warned they were reassessing their approach to social partnership agreements. IBOA delegates attending the biennial conference in Galway yesterday also expressed a lack of confidence in their senior management, and demanded improvements in pay at all major institutions.
Ms O'Rourke told delegates that she acknowledged the huge pressures which the euro changeover was placing on the organisation's members. Referring to remuneration, the PPF and the role of the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) in determining claims, she said "a well documented case laid out" by the IBOA "would stand scrutiny". To applause, she told the bank officials "you will gain from the knowledge" of the experience among colleagues in other countries.
The Minister said she was a strong believer in the PPF and she did not believe that confrontation was the way to do business. "Jaw, jaw is still better than war, war," she said.
Complimenting the union on its role and influence, she said there was "never a greater time for solidarity among your members as now". When united in this way an agenda could be worked out, she said.
The Minister made veiled criticism of senior bank management in relation to new technology and the cuts in certain customer services.
Change should be managed in a "comfortable way", she said, with a period of transition. While acknowledging that change was a part of life, "sometimes that zealotry for implementing it doesn't take into account human factors". We "all make mistakes" in managing to bring about change, she added, and "it just can't happen that way", she emphasised, to applause from the delegates.
Ms O'Rourke hoped to receive a ruling "very soon" from the Competition Authority on the proposals to transfer some bill-paying services from banks to An Post in rural areas from which banks were withdrawing.
She had heard from many people in rural areas of the "great void" left in rural life when the opportunity to deal directly and confidentially with a bank official was no longer available.
The IBOA has called for establishment of an industry forum on the future of the branch network.
Mr Larry Broderick, the IBOA's new general secretary, said there had been huge change over the last two years at branch level in the banking industry.
"The scary part of it is that the management of our banks don't appear to know what they are trying to achieve," he said. "Ironically, bank staff got lectures on the need to become more 'customer-focused' and to stay close to our customers. Yet it is the banks themselves who have disrupted and undermined customer confidence through a series of actions. These have included the closure of branches and the various attempts to severely curtail the range of services available to personal customers - particularly the elderly and the vulnerable in our society.
"The IBOA acknowledges that the banks are not public utilities," Mr Broderick continued. "However, their profits are generated by the staff and their customers," and so they deserved to be consulted about the future of the branch network.
A survey had indicated that 65 per cent of IBOA members were dissatisfied with pay and benefits, Mr Broderick said. There was anger and frustration when set against the context of continuous growth and profit - at approximately £2.5 billion (€3.17 billion) in total for the four associated banks. "The growth in profits was about 50 per cent between 1996 and 2000, while bank staff salaries increased by less than 17 per cent," he said.
