Staff at Irish Life have narrowly rejected union proposals to take industrial action over uncertainty about the implications for workers of the proposed sale of the company.
Irish Life plans to unilaterally transfer staff to two new joint venture companies: one providing shared services like human resources and IT, and another to be known as Irish Life Financial Services.
The company had written to UNITE saying that it must be in a position to transfer staff after October 31 because of a High Court order to separate Permanent TSB and Irish Life.
But employees feared that their terms and conditions could be adversely affected by the restructuring.
Irish Life had rejected union criticisms, saying jobs and conditions would be protected under Transfer of Undertakings legislation.
UNITE - which represents around 1,000 workers at Irish Life - had balloted staff for industrial action which would initially have involved a one-day stoppage. Staff have narrowly rejected the industrial action proposal.
Discussions with management are now due to resume on a range of issues. UNITE national officer Colm Quinlan said that more than 40% of staff had been prepared to take industrial action.
He said it would be a mistake for the company to interpret the ballot result as meaning that management had a free hand to implement changes to members' terms and conditions without an agreement that was acceptable to them.
Mr Quinlan said the ballot result did not mean that industrial action would not happen if the company failed to address the issues necessary to reach agreement.
Some issues of dispute - including the treatment of staff mortgages after the sale of Irish Life - were resolved while the ballot was being taken.
Irish Life welcomed the outcome, saying it now looked forward to working with UNITE at the Labour Court to address the outstanding issues in a constructive, positive manner.
IL&P raises €1.15 billion of unguaranteed funds
Irish Life & Permanent says it has raised new funds totalling €1.15 billion in two separate deals. The new funds are not covered by the bank guarantee scheme.
IL&P has raised €1 billion through a deal with an unnamed international investment bank. This is secured on the bank's UK mortgage book. It follows a similar transaction in August when the bank raised £1.4 billion of unguaranteed funding.
Another €145m was put in place by Permanent TSB Finance, the car finance subsidiary of the bank, through a private placing secured against its Irish car finance loan book. IL&P says this is the first auto-finance securitisation in the Irish market since the start of the financial crisis.
Meanwhile, approval for the transfer of the Irish deposit-taking business of Northern Rock to IL&P was granted by the Minister for Finance yesterday. A statutory instrument was issued to give effect to the transfer. The deal is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.
