EBS building soc workers want annual Xmas bonus

Deank · 08-12-2011 02:02PM

Right so Star, lets say you do enter a scheme with your employer to put aside €200 a month over 12 months from you salary and for the savings to paid in one lump sum in Dec, and then your employer turns around in Dec and says sorry your not getting it, do you not consider that robbery, your employer has just taken €2,400 of your hard earned cash!!!

starbelgrade wrote: »

It's not true. He just made that up.

Even Unite - the trade union for EBS workers - recognise that this is not the case... Union official Colm Quinlan yesterday said "workers considered the payment a built-in payroll savings scheme to subsidise extra expenses at this time of year."

Now while they may have considered it a built-in payroll savings scheme, that doesn't mean that it actually is one.

This is a simple case of workers throwing their toys out of the pram because they're not getting any bonus this year.

oldyouth · 08-12-2011 02:03PM

Deank wrote: »

Just to set the record straight on this one, the press and Senior Management of EBS have totally misquoted the terms of the EBS employees contracts, it is not a bonus that they were entitled too it was savings.
Each month they had a percentage of their salary deducted by payroll and put aside as savings, they were entitled to get this lump sum back in December, it was up to each individual whether they signed up to the savings scheme and the amount which they contributed.

Now if that's the case, it is a totally different thing altogether. The money belonged to the staff and they are entitled to it back.

I'm not hearing this side of things anywhere though

Deank · 08-12-2011 02:07PM

Ask anyone who works in EBS, it is fact, they are being robbed, Senior Management have put a spin on the whole thing to make it sound like a bonus payment when it it actually savings.

oldyouth wrote: »

Now if that's the case, it is a totally different thing altogether. The money belonged to the staff and they are entitled to it back.

I'm not hearing this side of things anywhere though

starbelgrade · 08-12-2011 02:08PM

Deank wrote: »

Right so Star, lets say you do enter a scheme with your employer to put aside €200 a month over 12 months from you salary and for the savings to paid in one lump sum in Dec, and then your employer turns around in Dec and says sorry your not getting it, do you not consider that robbery, your employer has just taken €2,400 of your hard earned cash!!!

True - but no such payment scheme actually existed in EBS.

Deank · 08-12-2011 02:19PM

And you have that on good authority do you, there was / is such a scheme, whether it's actually called a savings scheme or not I cannot verify.

Are you Senior Management in EBS???

The fact is that the staff if the so wished too had a sum of money deducted from their monthly salary which was to be paid back to them in December.

starbelgrade wrote: »

True - but no such payment scheme actually existed in EBS.

Snakeblood · 08-12-2011 02:21PM

Deank wrote: »

And you have that on good authority do you, there was / is such a scheme, whether it's actually called a savings scheme or not I cannot verify.

Are you Senior Management in EBS???

The fact is that the staff if the so wished too had a sum of money deducted from their monthly salary which was to be paid back to them in December.

So you were able to opt out of the deduction and receive it throughout the year?

gigino · 08-12-2011 02:23PM

Should an insolvent small building society, which does nothing now for the taxpayer but absorb a bailout of over 2 billion euro - not just be wound up like their comrades in Anglo ?
Should not people who helped wreck the economy have their wages ( which go up to € 380,000 ) cut by 10% instead of getting their usual one month salary Xmas bonus ? What other perks do they have we do not hear about ?

Deank · 08-12-2011 02:24PM

There is an option in their contracts where they can specify an amount to be deducted from payroll monthly which they would get back in December.

Not sure if you could opt out once you signed up for the scheme as i don't work for EBS but know someone who does and is effected by this debacle.

Snakeblood wrote: »

So you were able to opt out of the deduction and receive it throughout the year?

Snakeblood · 08-12-2011 02:24PM

Deank wrote: »

There is an option in their contracts where they can specify a monthly amount to be deducted from payroll monthly which they would get back in December.

Not sure if you could opt out once you signed up for the scheme as i don't work for EBS but know someone who does and is effected by this debacle.

I'm a bit confused how EBS can break a contract then.

MagicSean · 08-12-2011 02:27PM

Fbjm wrote: »

They're not... **** it I give up :rolleyes:

Did your daddy not tell you he was getting his 13th month payment?

Deank · 08-12-2011 02:28PM

Eh they are getting it - FACT.

Fbjm wrote: »

upper management aren't getting it.

Snakeblood · 08-12-2011 02:32PM

Snakeblood wrote: »

I'm a bit confused how EBS can break a contract then.

According to this:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2011/1208/1224308742888.html

STAFF AT the EBS have been told they will not receive an annual Christmas bonus of up to €5,000 per person as the Government’s bailout deal with Allied Irish Banks, the building society’s new owner, prohibits bonus payments.

Well, if it's lose bonus or lose job, suck it up, I guess.

stovelid · 08-12-2011 02:36PM

Fbjm wrote: »

Funny actually, they were on the news yesterday and wanted to make a fuss, but dad got the place to shut and disable the blinds, thus a reporter standing outside a seemingly calm building. Union epic-fails :cool:

"Dad" sounds like a bit of a cunt?

rich1874 · 08-12-2011 02:39PM

Pretty black and white to me, if it's in their contract and they are expecting it as part of their salary them of course they should get it, anyone who argues otherwise obviously doesn't know how a signed a contract works. If it's not guaranteed or is not in their contract then of course they shouldn't get it.

Anybody know what the actual contract says?

rich1874 · 08-12-2011 02:39PM

Fbjm wrote: »

Because he made necessary cuts? I get where you're coming from and actually pulled him up on it last night when he was telling myself and mom. Not like I could do anything about it though, and besides the cuts were necessary.

How muc does you dad get a year? Is he getting a bonus?

stovelid · 08-12-2011 02:41PM

Fbjm wrote: »

Because he made necessary cuts?

Not at all. It's his job.

I meant the other stunt I quoted and the seemingly gleeful way in which it was related.

COYW · 08-12-2011 02:44PM

gigino wrote: »

IIn fact very few people in the country ever had the taxpayer giving them a bonus at Christmas time.

Except for people who were in the following categories pre 2009 :

You will get a Christmas Bonus if you are getting one of the following social welfare payments:

Back to Work Allowance
Back to Education Allowance
Blind Pension
Carer's Allowance
Half-rate Carer's Allowance
Carer’s Benefit
Deserted Wife's Benefit
Deserted Wife’s Allowance
Prisoner's Wife's Allowance
Disability Allowance
Farm Assist
Guardian’s payments - formerly called Orphan’s Pension or Allowance
Invalidity Pension
Jobseeker’s Allowance (long-term) - formerly called Unemployment Assistance
One-Parent Family Payment
Pre-Retirement Allowance
Widow's, Widower's or Surviving Civil Partner's (Contributory) Pension
Widow's, Widower's or Surviving Civil Partner's (Non-Contributory) Pension
State Pension (Contributory) - formerly called Old Age (Contributory) Pension
State Pension (Non-Contributory) - formerly called Old Age (Non-Contributory) Pension
State Pension (Transition) - formerly called Retirement Pension
Disablement Pension
Death Benefit by way of pension.

Fbjm wrote: »

How is it a fact? I was told none of the upper managers have got it for years

That is true, it was done away with for higher level managers years ago.

El Weirdo · 08-12-2011 02:44PM

Jesus, I'm not sure which side I should be rabbling on in this one.

On the one hand, you got people saying that it's workers' salaries that have effectively been withheld as part of some Christmas club saving scheme. Although these people haven't provided links to back this up.

On the other hand you've got people saying that these payments are bonuses that are prohibited under the government bailout. Unfortunately the links backing these claims up are from RTE and the Irish Times who, after recent developments concerning a certain PR company, I am not feeling too inclined to believe.

What to do.

MagicSean · 08-12-2011 02:45PM

Fbjm wrote: »

>.> easy there, no point in getting abrasive...

You're the one that came on laughing and bragging about how your dad was the one who has put these people under massive financial pressure for Christmas.

Freddie59 · 08-12-2011 02:46PM

rich1874 wrote: »

Pretty black and white to me, if it's in their contract and they are expecting it as part of their salary them of course they should get it, anyone who argues otherwise obviously doesn't know how a signed a contract works. If it's not guaranteed or is not in their contract then of course they shouldn't get it.

Anybody know what the actual contract says?

Very far from black and white actually. Their contract was with a previous entity, which was bankrupt and no longer viable.

stovelid · 08-12-2011 02:47PM

Fbjm wrote: »

Oh there's a whole backstory to that. The union wanted to use the library so they were allowed, then like 5 minutes before they went live or something they went down to the café bit downstairs in front of the cameras. That's obviously trying to get one up on the company, over something that's necessary.

Thrash the communist blighters like miserable curs, I say.

Freddie59 · 08-12-2011 02:48PM

jester77 wrote: »

This is not a bonus payment.

Your total salary is divided by 13 instead of 12. So every month you get a little less and then at the end of the year you get salary 12 + 13 in one payslip. Num 13 is not guaranteed and may not be paid out if the company had a bad year and is struggling.

Or is, in essence, a bankrupt failed business entity which should no longer exist.

Snakeblood · 08-12-2011 02:48PM

Freddie59 wrote: »

Very far from black and white actually. Their contract was with a previous entity, which was bankrupt and no longer viable.

The problem is that they're apparently honouring the contracts with management who do get paid the 13th month, because for managers, it's 'base salary' and not 'bonus'. If they can just rip up contracts, then rip them all up.

I waver on this one. I don't think anyone should get the bonus, and I think they should have been told long ago this was coming. This month is a toss way to do it.

08-12-2011 02:50PM

The company acknowledged that the 13th month Christmas bonus is specified in the employees' contracts. It said that the payment was not pensionable - and staff leaving before the Christmas payroll run in any given year would not receive the payment.

Asked why managers would continue to receive a "13th month", sources said their payment was "base salary", which they could choose to have paid over 12 or 13 months, but not a bonus.

So why the fúck do they use the term "13th month" in relation to a bonus? It's completely different.

Here our annual base salary is divided by 13. We receive 1 1/13th every month except December when we receive 2 1/13ths. Simples.

Either it's their base salary (which they're entitled to and I can't see anyone screwing with that) or it's a bonus, which they're not.

I'll grant that the timing is shítty. Although, if it IS a bonus, why have they been getting it up to now??

starbelgrade · 08-12-2011 02:51PM

El Weirdo wrote: »

Jesus, I'm not sure which side I should be rabbling on in this one.

What to do.

Just get off the fence, pick a side & run with that.

This time next week, there'll be something else to argue about and whether you were right or wrong on this debate won't matter a fudge.

LittleBook · 08-12-2011 02:55PM

Maybe they'll get a years subscription to the "Jelly of the Month" club, that'll cheer them up.

Wile E. Coyote · 08-12-2011 02:57PM

jester77 wrote: »

This is not a bonus payment.

Your total salary is divided by 13 instead of 12. So every month you get a little less and then at the end of the year you get salary 12 + 13 in one payslip. Num 13 is not guaranteed and may not be paid out if the company had a bad year and is struggling.

Is that really the case though? Does the contract state that your salary is, for example, €25k per annum. Or, as I would suspect, does it state something along the lines of your salary is €1,923.08 per month with an additional monthly payment of €1,923.08 to be paid out with your December wages subject to company performance etc, etc.

gigino · 08-12-2011 02:58PM

MagicSean wrote: »

You're the one that came on laughing and bragging about how your dad was the one who has put these people under massive financial pressure for Christmas.

What is a small bankrupt building society , in a small country the population of an ordinary city elsewhere in the world, doing getting bailouts of billions of euro from the Irish taxpayer - especially after the self same building socirty helped **** the country by sometimes lending people 10 and 15 times their salary, to inflate the property bubble during the boom ?
Now the boom is over, the building society is not lending out money / granting new mortgages. It is having to pay depositors twice as much ( about 4% ) for them to lend it money, than some people with mortgages are paying them ( about 2% ). And yet, despite this mess, the head of this ( relatively tiny ) building society - pays himself more than the President of America is paid. I would have thought running the free world, or at least a country nearly 100 times the population of Ireland , was / is a more difficult , 24/7 kind of responsible job.
The IMF is here, the taxpayer is bailing them out and now the workers in EBS think they should get a months xmas bonus ??? :rolleyes:

I heard a father of a disabled child crying on the radio yesterday because of the budget cuts.The world is gone mad.

starbelgrade · 08-12-2011 03:00PM

tightropetom wrote: »

Allow me to explain. There are 13 lunar months in a year.

You should present Q.I.

Not only do you seem to know stuff, but also seem to possess an air of smug superiority which would suit you perfectly in the role.

Fear Uladh · 08-12-2011 03:02PM

As long as me leccy is runin fore me haytin, let dem do whaever wha wha.

EBS building soc workers want annual Xmas bonus

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