New Ireland served with strike notice
Saturday March 21 2009
NEW Ireland Assurance has become one of the first employers to be served with notice of strike action on a proposed national day of protest in nine days.
Unite has notified the Bank of Ireland subsidiary that it will mount pickets at the Bank of Ireland headquarters on the first day of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions' (ICTU) planned campaign of strikes on March 30.
The action by unions across the public and private sector is being taken against employers who have not paid the first 3.5pc pay rise due to workers.
Glanbia, Tesco and CRH are among the businesses that are expected to refuse to pay the increases and to be picketed.
IBEC has called for an indefinite deferral of the wage agreement and instructed employers to deduct the pay of workers who participate in the strike and take disciplinary action against them.
Unite has branded this a "naked attempt to punish" workers who exercise their right to protest.
The union, which represents 15,000 financial services workers, said an overwhelming majority of its just under 500 members at New Ireland Assurance had voted for industrial action.
- Anne-Marie Walsh
