said there were outstanding issues relating to the Belgian-owned bank’s exit from the Irish market that had still to be ironed out.A number of KBC Ireland’s 1,300-strong workforce are members of the FSU. However, the bank has refused to engage with the union on issues such as redundancy terms, work transfer rights, and pension schemes after the bank revealed in April that it planned to retreat from the Republic.
“The bank of you, as KBC refers to itself, is not a bank that values staff engagement or a bank that adheres to normal industrial relations practices,”Mr Murphy said the bank’s actions showed “a complete contempt for the industrial relations mechanisms of the State and a disregard for the views of union members in the bank.
The fact that KBC are allowed to ignore the Labour Court shows the need to urgently modernise our industrial relations legislation and why workers want real reform, he added. Mr Murphy said the FSU has written again to KBC on these matters and remains available to meet over the coming days .