ANZ National delegates shaping up for campaign

ANZ National delegates are spending the next few weeks getting “match fit” in the lead up to their collective agreement negotiations.

Delegates in the main centres will be participating in half day meetings to ensure their sites are ready for this year’s negotiations.

Other delegates will attend conference calls on the evenings of 16-18 June. These calls will cover all the information needed to run pre-negotiations meetings.

Information about these meetings and calls are in the post to delegates.

Thanks to all the members that took part in claims development meetings in your worksites. Your ideas are currently being analysed. We swap our claims with the bank next week so keep your eye out for more info on that.

ANZ staff join to strengthen our voice at negotiations

ANZ National Union Councillor David Baker from the National Bank in Te Rapa gave the Gossip some good news this week that staff from ANZ in Hamilton have been joining our union in order to strengthen our hand in negotiations.

“Talking to ANZ staff, the message has come through strongly that non-members are joining us because they want to make sure we protect the conditions we have fought for and won in the past,” said David. “They see the value that every new member joining brings to our collective issue – this year more than ever.”
Successful recruitment in the Hamilton area is building on work from last year’s member organising project, and also on work involving new delegates in the lead up to negotiations.

Your views coming through from claims development meetings

Claims development meetings began at ANZ National and Westpac worksites this week and continue through to the end of next week.

Mary McKeown, delegate from ANZ Sydenham said their meeting provided a good opportunity to share ideas and that staff shared the same issues but from different perspectives of their different roles.

“We were very firmly of the view that we don’t want to trade away any conditions at this point,” said Mary. “We also view gaining union rights as an important objective for bargaining. It’s something the bank can do with little or no cost to them, and could be crucial given the change of government and change in industrial relations policy.”

Sydenham branch members were also very concerned about the time-consuming work of Personal Bankers that makes targets even more unachievable. “At times we feel like social workers – talking with customers not only about financial issues but about many other issues. It really does limit the time that we can spend ‘selling’ but is an important part of our work and needs to be taken into account when setting targets.”

Claims development meetings continue at Westpac and ANZ National next week and it is the right of Finsec members to attend and contribute.

If your worksite has not yet set up your claims development meetings please do so as soon as possible.

Claims development meetings start next week at ANZ National and Westpac

Finsec members at ANZ National and Westpac take another step closer to bargaining with claims development meeting to start next week. The meetings will be held from 19-29 May and are part of a busy schedule of activity until bargaining starts 7 July.

Union Councils from both banks met this week to strategise. ANZ National Union Council Chairperson Cathie Lendrum said that while those in senior management roles would barely notice a pay freeze, staff at the bottom need a fair pay rise to meet their living costs.

“We will be seeking a fair and reasonable pay rise from these negotiations,” said Cathie. “The bank might try and use the recession as an excuse to minimise their own costs, but we know that not only are their profits holding up well, but that staff are working harder in order to keep the organisation profitable.”

A claims development pack will be sent to Finsec members early next week with all the information for running meetings and will also be available on www.finsec.org.nz

ANZ and BNZ profits show they can afford fair pay increase and keep staff in jobs

Finsec members’ goals to protect jobs and achieve fair pay increases got a boost this week with both the BNZ and ANZ National announcing profits.

Both banks announced half year profits in excess of $400 million. These results can be considered somewhat remarkable given the current economic crisis. The profit announcements are more evidence that there is no reason for either bank to cut any more jobs or freeze pay.

The banks are also drawing criticism for failing to pass on reductions to the OCR to customers. Only Westpac has dropped their rate so far.

ANZ Back office jobs could disappear to India

While there have been conflicting media reports in the last week about ANZ’s plans to offshore another 500 jobs from Australia to Bangalore, Indian media stories quoted in the Age present a much more worrying picture for Australasian bank workers.

In April 2008, the Times of India cited ANZ saying that “in the long-term, local back-office operations could disappear in Australia.” CEO Mike Smith described the bank’s back office operations in Australia as “somewhat archaic”.

An anonymous ANZ employee in Australia told the Age that the bank’s claims last week that further offshoring would not result in Australian job losses were “highly dubious.” They said that ANZ is compartmentalizing the job cuts, making it difficult to decipher which jobs are going, and where. “People across the board understand something is happening but it’s all in a fog.”

Back office staff in ANZ National in New Zealand affected by the offshoring here will recognise the similarities being adopted by the bank on both sides of the Tasman.

New CEO for ANZ National

ANZ National has been playing musical chairs with top executives, with CEO Graham Hodges taking over as deputy chief executive of the ANZ Group and will move to Australia.

Dr Jenny Fagg, currently the deputy CEO of ANZ National in New Zealand has been promoted to the role of CEO.

Fagg will take up her new role on 1 May.

Further discussions with ANZ National on offshoring

Finsec representatives met with ANZ National this week to conduct further discussions on our union proposals to keep staff affected by offshoring to Bangalore in work.

While the bank has refused to delay offshoring plans as proposed by Finsec, they say they are already taking some of the actions recommended in our A Job for All proposal. ANZ National have committed to come back to Finsec with a formal response to our recommendations.

Union Councillor Andy van der Heyden attended the meeting and said that affected staff were still very anxious about the offshoring and lacked information about key decisions. “We’re still seeking reassurance and some constructive information to enable us to make decisions,” he said.

A job for all offshored staff: Finsec’s submission to ANZ National

Finsec representatives  from sites affected by offshoring met with ANZ National this week to present a series of proposals to ensure all offshored staff who want a job get one. The meeting occurred following recent developments in the offshoring process, which have seen the bank step back from previous commitments that all offshored staff would be offered other roles within the bank. ANZ National is now saying that reduced turnover has limited redeployment opportunities.

Finsec’s proposals include:
•    Ensure those who want to leave the bank do so and access redundancy

•    Freeze external appointments until all staff whose roles have been offshored have an alternative job

•    Extend the redeployment timeline by only sending work to India once all affected staff have an alternative job

•    Give a preference for reemployment for 18 months to staff members who have been made redundant

•     Create a bank upskilling and retraining academy

•    Provide financial assistance for retraining for anyone who wants a job in the bank but can’t get redeployed.

The full Finsec submission can be found at:
http://www.finsec.org.nz/anz_national.aspx

Finsec is in ongoing discussions with the bank about our proposals and the offshoring process.

Latest on ANZ National job cuts

ANZ National’s announcement last week of nearly 100 job cuts, largely due to offshoring attracted significant media attention.

The media story also drew comment from the bank, who said that redeployment options for affected staff were reduced due to decreased staff turnover at ANZ National. The bank spokesperson also said that the offshoring process would be complete by the end of this year, and that less than 500 jobs in total would be offshored to Bangalore.

Finsec will be meeting with ANZ National next Tuesday to discuss offshoring, and presenting our plans on the best way to guarantee jobs for all staff affected by the offshoring.

Links to media coverage on the job cuts at ANZ National below:
http://admin.radionz.co.nz/__data/assets/audio_item/0010/1851094/ckpt-20090130-1707-CTU_calls_for_action_over_job_losses-m048.asx

http://www.3news.co.nz/News/ANZ-National-100-jobs-cut-as-CEO-attends-job-summit/tabid/209/articleID/89062/Default.aspx?ArticleID=89062

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=151749