Last month Bank of Ireland management announced plans to sack 2,100 workers (12% of its workforce) close branches and outsource jobs on worse conditions.

These attacks come at a time when the bank made €1.3 billion in profits last year, which equates to over €3.5 million per day! These profits were made through the hard work of the workers in Bank of Ireland as well as through the exploitation of the bank's customers.

The unions in Bank of Ireland, the IBOA and AMICUS, are taking a "partnership" approach to management's attacks. This is a failed strategy and will not defeat these attacks. All partnership has done is massively increase profits for shareholders and deliver bigger pay outs for the senior management while the workers get worse working conditions, blame for management's scandals and are now threatened with redundancies.

Last year the bank's three executive directors took €3.42 million in basic pay, this is not including bonuses, pensions and stock options. This represents a pay hike of 22% on the previous year while the average Bank of Ireland worker must make do with just 3.7%.

The unions are currently in arbitration in the LRC. This process is likely to propose a compromise that will still result in redundancies, branch closures and outsourcing. These attacks can be beaten back but the unions need to fight. Any deal that leads to worse conditions for Bank of Ireland staff should be rejected. The unions should oppose all redundancies not just compulsory redundancies as reduced staff numbers means more work and stress for remaining staff.

The unions should harness the huge anger among the workers and use the upcoming series of meetings with their members to immediately organise for strike action to defeat the current attacks and also to improve existing conditions.