Anglo Irish axes 110 staff

MORE than a hundred jobs in Ireland are being axed by Anglo Irish Bank as part of a 230 jobs cut in Europe and the USA.
Management at the bank, which was nationalised in January, will axe 110 jobs in Ireland.
The bank claims the job cuts are due to the necessary restructuring and the transfer of about €28 billion of loans to the National Asset Management Agency over the coming months.

Anger at Limerick job losses

AN announcement by the Uniphar wholesale pharmaceutical supplier in Limerick City that it is to axe 45 jobs has provoked an angry reaction from trade union SIPTU.
Workers at the company’s facility in Garryglass have been told that 45 jobs are to go by 1 March as part of a shedding of 140 jobs nationwide.
SIPTU’s Michael Kiely says the 45 job losses in Limerick represent a cut of almost 40 per cent in the local workforce and he says he believes the Limerick facility is being unfairly targeted when it was thought the jobs losses would be evenly spread throughout Dublin, Cork, Ballina and Limerick.

Belfast bank positions under threat

UP to 120 jobs could be lost in Belfast as a result of a swathe of jobs cuts across Halifax bank branches and operations in Ireland and Britain.
Halifax is a brand name of Bank of Scotland, a subsidiary of the Lloyds Banking Group.
Rob McGregor, national officer of the Unite trade union, said:
“This Lloyds Banking Group announcement of 5,000 job losses demonstrates the depth of corporate arrogance within this taxpayer-supported bank.
“This country’s financial sector should be looking towards the future, rather than continuing to slash jobs without proper consideration of how to rebuild the public’s confidence in our tarnished banking sector.”

Union takes Ulster Bank to court

FINANCE workers’ union IBOA has lodged papers with the High Court in Belfast to commence legal action against the Ulster Bank Group for allegedly making illegal deductions from the wages of its employees.
A parallel action is being taken by the union in the 26 Counties under the auspices of the Rights Commissioner.
The union claims that the bank has withheld payments that are contractually due to staff unless staff sign up to dramatically changed contracts which would seriously reduce their pension benefits on retirement and undermine existing terms and conditions negotiated with the union over many years.
IBOA General Secretary Larry Broderick said:
“We believe that our members are now being asked to make life-changing decisions about their future in order to secure payments which are already theirs by right.
“The bank’s actions in this regard are certainly immoral – and probably illegal too.
“Of all employers, a bank should understand the need to develop and maintain a reputation for fair dealing and integrity. Trust is essential in banking. Our members trusted that the bank would honour its obligations to staff, especially since they co-operated with a restructuring programme involving over 1,000 job losses this year. But their trust has been poorly rewarded.
“It is this fundamental breach of trust that has led us to commence this action today.”

Six-month strike settled

A SIX-MONTH strike at a County Longford nursing home has ended after staff accepted a Rights Commissioner recommendation.
Twenty-three redundancies will be made at Our Lady’s Manor Nursing Home in Edgeworthstown but other cuts proposed by management will be reversed. SIPTU branch rep Sean Nolan said: “This agreement was accepted by the huge majority of SIPTU members and finally brings this difficult and protracted dispute to an end.
“The result is a credit to the courage and tenacity of the nursing home workers who spent months out on pickets in the wind and the rain.”