Up to 600 Irish Central Bank staff are on strike Friday as job losses in the private sector mount. Four in ten workers are worried about the possibility of being made redundant during the next 12 months, according to a new Ipsos MORI poll published today - - fear of redundancy is at a 10-year high. There were at least 600 job losses in the private sector, announced in the past 2 days.
The Central Bank members of the Unite trade union are on a one day strike because of "frustration" at management's withdrawal from talks over employment contracts. It claims this is a breach of existing arrangements.
Unite is Britain's biggest union.
Pickets are in place at the Central Bank in Dame Street and at the Office of the Financial Regulator on College Green in Dublin city centre.
Pickets will also be placed at the Central Bank's currency centre in Sandyford.
The Central Bank, which has a total staff of over 1,000 employees, says the strike will not affect the normal retail business of Irish banks.
The Central Bank’s TARGET Real Time Gross Settlement System for large value payments will continue to operate on the day. Normal retail business of domestic banks will not be affected.
The Bank’s public office and the Financial Regulator’s consumer information centre will not be open on Friday.
Job losses mount
Most job losses are not reported but in the past 2 days, almost 600 were announced to the media but there were without doubt many additions.
On Wednesday, Budget Travel collapsed with the loss of over 170 jobs; car dealer EP Mooney folded with the loss of 90 jobs.
On Thursday, more than 300 job losses were announced at two separate companies in Sligo and Cork.
160 jobs are to go at a call centre in Sligo. The Tiscali contact centre in the Finisklin Business Centre is due to close down in six months' time.
Tiscali is part of the Talk Talk group, a UK supplier of phone and broadband services.
The call centre in Sligo first opened in 2006, when it was operated by a company called Toucan, which promised 300 jobs.
Option Wireless is to cut 150 jobs at its plant in Cork as part of a cost-cutting plan by its Belgium-based parent company.
Option Wireless, which makes wireless communications products, said the facility at the Kilbarry Industrial Estate would keep 22 people.
The Cork plant has been responsible for customising the company's products, mainly by adding software. Its activities are to be transferred to what the company called 'lower cost' regions in Asia.
Option said the first lay-offs were likely to take place in January next year, with further redundancies at the end of March.
Redundancy poll
Polling organisation Ipsos MORI said today that four in ten workers are worried about the possibility of being made redundant during the next 12 months.
The survey of 1,500 people, which was conducted between July and September shows that fear of redundancy is at its highest since the poll began in 1999.
Forty-eight per cent of full-time private sector employees said they were worried about losing their job over the next year compared to just 24 per cent of public sector workers.
The poll also shows that 46 per cent of State employees believe their finances will decline as against 32 per cent of private sector workers.
“These latest figures indicate that for many of those working in this sector, cuts in public sector pay are seen as a likely outcome of the upcoming Budget," said Kieran O’Leary, research director at Ipsos MORI.
“Furthermore, despite a slowdown in increases in the rate of unemployment, fears of redundancy remain a real concern for many private and public sector workers alike."
The underlying outlook about the Irish economy remains pessimistic among consumers, with 64 per cent of respondents saying they think it will worsen over the coming 12 months, and 11 per cent thinking it will improve.
