the world's just is not fair
time to throw a tantrum
but dont worry
Senior staff will get their bonuses|O



http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... ing34.html

From what I hearit is not a bonus per say but a Chrimbo savings club. Annual salary is divided by 13 instead of 12 with two months being paid in December.

Open to correction.

Thats my understanding of it too. Same payment system operated in ptsb when I worked there.

If true they'd be seeking redress in the courts. The fact that they're striking strongly suggests they have no legal entitlement to the payment.

From what i hear its not in their contract they signed with the company when they joined.
so its not a case of their contracted salary now being divided by 12 instead of 13,
otherwise they would have received monthly increases over the previous few months to compensate.
They are continuing to receive their salary as per their contract.

Its supposed to be an assumption that people made because it was always given previously.
Hence quite rightly they are not entitled to it now - people are lucky to have a job.
As for management getting it, that is despicable
but apparently it is in their contract, so what can you do?

Of course, what any HR department should do now,
is look at the discrepancy in the now widening labour costs between management and basic workers,
and bear that in mind when it comes to make savings through mandatory redundancies.
I know who should be first on the list when employees need to go!

No. HR works directly for management and is there to enable an inderect system of application of certain unpalatable or (in the view of the worker) undesireable decisions to be made legally, behind closed doors and officially. More completely HR doesn't work for the workers, HR works for management.

Whether it was in their contract of employment or not would seem to me to be irrelevant in this case. A 45-year tradition carries some weight. When I was in the Civil Service, I don't remember the shopping ("privilege") days being in my contract nor was the half hour to cash a non-existant cheque. As you know the half hour thing was in existance for years after CS workers were being paid by Direct Debit while the "privlage" days were converted into annual leave!

The EBS workers will get their "bonus" but it will be called something else and converted into part of their annual salary. Increments anyone?

Irrelevant - like hell it is. I hope this goes to the Labour Court and they laugh at the union. If its not in their contract, they shouldn't get it - end of story. EBS are not some charity - they are there for their members - or at least were there for their members, now they are there to enrich their AIB shareholders - that is - the taxpayer!

As for tradition, I assume you're just taking the piss now.
For the love of god, house prices have also traditionally gone up every year see the problem with assuming traditions continue indefinitely....ask a roof thatcher .
These people should be given an interest-free loan if they had taken it into account in their budgeting, and pay whatever benefit-in-kind is due on a preferential loan, and let that be it.

Can you imagine the precedent? A company paying a bonus a few years in a row would be running a risk of establishing a "tradition" the employees could claim a legal right to!

Agreed. It sounds pretty clearly salary- It is a fixed amount, given irrespective of performance, many many years tradition.

Open and shut case for the Labour Court.

Your argument was lost right there.

Perhaps you’re thinking the labour court is a court, with an intelligent, independent minded judge like Peter Kelly?

Sadly no, the labour court is almost a branch of the trade unions – with chairman Kevin Duffy - ex BATU/ICTU/Worker Party, Kieran Mulvey CEO – ex Gen-Sec Asti /Workers party.

They’ve a tendency to pander to rather than laugh at ludicrous claims. An employer brought to the labour court has already lost, it’s just a question of how much.

Fixed that for you!

I think that's why he said it was an open and shut case.

These people work for a company that is completely bankrupt. If we had a functioning market economy they would all have lost their jobs and pensions. But instead the government intervened and bought EBS and they are now paid by the taxpayer. Effectively, they are public servants. However, unlike (many) other public servants, they don't actually provide a service. We have too many banks in Ireland, and pretty much all of them are loss making. So effectively, we're paying these people to lose money for the taxpayer.

I'm not blaming the EBS employees for this. No doubt some of them are responsible for the reckless loss-making lending that bankrupted EBS. But most of them are just unlucky people very much like many Waterford Crystal employees. They just happened to work for a firm that made big losses. However, unlike Waterford Crystal, the taxpayer has stepped in to rescue the EBS employees and their pensions.

Given that they are being paid by the taxpayer to work in a bank that doesn't do much lending and instead mostly makes losses, it doesn't seem unreasonable for the taxpayer to take a look at their contract and only pay up what is actually contractually due to them. If they worked in a part of the economy where the rules of economics work, they would have lost everything.

BG.