ANZ National members vote no to 4%

ANZ National members have voted to reject the bank’s pay offer of 4% and have authorised holding a 2 hour unpaid stopwork meeting on 22 August.

A public campaign is being launched to fight for a better deal.

75% of members voting chose to reject the bank’s offer, and 67% voted to in favour of the stopwork on 22 August.

Union Council Chair Cathie Lendrum urged members to take part in the campaign to win a better deal. “In these tough economic time 4% just isn’t good enough. Espeically when the bank is making such a large profit and the difference for the bank between what we are asking for and what is being offered is so small.”

Clarifications on ANZ National offshoring; Westpac Australia offshores 55 more jobs

Finsec met with ANZ National last week to raise concerns about the selection process for staff affected by offshoring of work to Bangalore. National organiser Bella Pardoe said that the meeting was productive and has delivered greater clarification for affected staff.

“Affected staff can express their preferences about their future to the bank, which is good news,” said Bella. “The most important clarification is that staff who don’t want to apply for one of the remaining roles in their area or be redeployed into another role can tick the “I would like to consider other options” box. Ticking this box will be seen as a clear indication that you are seeking to be made redundant.”

“Finsec will be communicating with members throughout the coming weeks, and has set up an email address, offshoringsupport@finsec.org.nz, where affected staff can get legal advice.”

Meanwhile, Westpac Australia announced this week that they were considering offshoring 55 positions at Concord Operational Centre to Genpact in India. A final decision will be made in October and the actual jobs will be offshored in February 2009.

A Tale of Two Negotiations

Collective agreement negotiations with ANZ National and with Sovereign, a story with all the classic ingredients for a good yarn – conflict, money, even surprisingly enough, a love story. At this point, it seems that sadly only one of these negotiations is ready for a happy ending.

The romance aspect of this story is due to a husband and wife duo of Finsec bargaining team members – Carl Macken from Sovereign and Nola Macken from ANZ National. In both sets of negotiations, the employer started with pay offers of 4%. However, in the second round of negotiations Sovereign moved their offer to 4.3%, which Finsec members will be voting on shortly. ANZ National have yet to move their offer.

Nola Macken says it’s unfortunate that ANZ National have not listened to staff yet, unlike her husband’s employer. “Both taking part in negotiations has definitely introduced an element of competition in our house. All’s fair in love and war!” she says. “But we are in agreement that ANZ National should follow Sovereign’s lead and come up with a fairer offer.”

We’ll always have bargaining

Paid union meetings for ANZ National staff to vote on the bank’s 4% offer continue next week, as do meetings for Westpac staff to vote on their 5% deal.

No change to ANZ National offer – union reps to meet with CEO on Monday

Further negotiations yesterday between Finsec and ANZ National produced no change to the bank’s offer of 4%, despite Westpac members being offered 5% and confirmation from the Reserve Bank yesterday that inflation is tipped to hit 5% in the upcoming September quarter. Finsec National Organiser Bella Pardoe said that the case was put very strongly of the need for a 5% pay increase. Finsec reps presented a paper to the bank setting out the key economic and social arguments for a 5% increase. Members can view a copy of the paper here on the Finsec website: http://www.finsec.org.nz/ANZNational/ANZ%20National%20Negotiations%2024%20July%202008.pdf.

Pardoe said that the next step was a meeting on Monday with ANZ National CEO Graham Hodges, to try and convince him personally of the importance of ANZ National staff achieving a pay increase in real terms at a time in which staff are working harder and the bank has never been more profitable.

More negotiations for more money

Finsec is to attend mediation with on Monday following negotiations last week now reaching a settlement. Westpac Union Council Chair Maxine Mullen said the bargaining team had been invited to attend mediation by the bank.

“While we have some reservations, we are very much aware that members have strong expectations for a 5% pay increase and to have other issues addressed,” said Maxine. “Therefore, we think it is important to explore all options and mediation is an option before us to achieve our goals.”

ANZ National members are currently participating in an indicative vote on the bank’s offer. The ballot closes next Wednesday. The bank has also agreed to resume negotiations with the Finsec bargaining team at the end of next week if the indicative vote is to reject the bank’s offer.

ANZ National profits from shipping nearly 250 jobs to India

Finsec said this week that ANZ National was a bad corporate citizen and was harming our economy after announcements that it was cutting 238 jobs in its major processing centres in Auckland and Wellington.

“ANZ National can easily afford to employ a New Zealand workforce. We believe the bank is placing the greedy goal of its owner ANZ Australia of doubling profits within 5 years above the interests of workers and our economy,” said Finsec Campaigns Director Andrew Campbell.

Campbell said the bank was sending jobs to India where they can be done 75% cheaper and that they should be using their billion dollar profits to help the country through the recession.

The offshoring attracted a lot of national and international media coverage which can be seen at the links below:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10521981

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1912632

http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/215337A6E728FE536525748800198654?OpenDocument

http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14717050

Stop press: negotiations on this week

Finsec bargaining teams have been in collective employment agreement negotiations with ANZ National and Westpac banks since Tuesday this week. The negotiations take place after an influx of new members to the union over recent weeks.

Finsec President Kelvin Pycroft thanked all members for their energy and activity in the campaign leading up to negotiations. “Members can expect communications very soon about the outcomes of the negotiations and what happens next,” said Kelvin. “The commitment of Finsec members to achieving fair pay, better staffing and fixing targets has been fantastic and gives great strength to our bargaining teams.”

In the lead up to negotiations, the issue of targets had a good airing with a story in the Sunday Star-Times. The story Bank union wants end to staff’s stressful debt-sales targets can be found at the link below http://www.stuff.co.nz/4609445a13.html

First teams advised of impact of ANZ National offshoring

The first teams affected by ANZ National’s proposed offshoring of hundreds of jobs to Bangalore  have been advised. Staff at Working Capital in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch attended meetings this week and were given more detail about the impact of the offshoring.

Finsec Campaigns Director Andrew Campbell attended the Wellington meeting and says that union is now working on engagement with the bank’s consultation processes. “We still have many unanswered questions around the process of reapplications for jobs and proposals around retraining. We are also concerned about what pressures remaining staff will come under as a result of the change.”

Information gathered from Finsec’s survey of affected staff will be used to inform feedback to the bank over the consultation period.

ANZ National criticises non “front line” public spending

ANZ National released their report this week criticising the mix of public spending on what they categorise as productive front line and unproductive back office bureaucracy. Chief Economist Cameron Bagrie argued that a greater proportion of taxpayer funds should be going to frontline services.

However, the report drew a lot of questions from unions and from Government Ministers. Finsec said that despite ANZ National’s claims they’re “defending the front line” the bank’s report on public expenditure will inevitably be used to attack public services, and shows the same disdain for non-frontline staff that has seen them proposing to send hundreds of Kiwi bank jobs to Bangalore.

The CTU argued that much of what the bank categorised as bureaucracy was actually front line services such as special education. This was echoed by Associate Finance Minister Trevor Mallard who said “In Mr Bagrie’s analysis, defence spending, police, corrections and courts spending is “back-office” as are school property costs, special education front line services, Work and Income front line services, Child Youth and Family front line services, and IRD call centre staff. This type of spending alone accounts for more than $6 billion or over 60 per cent of all the departmental output spending which Mr Bagrie says is back-office.”

See media coverage of the issue here: http://www.businessday.co.nz/industries/finance_banking/4614585

Public call for Better Banks days before negotiations begin

Bank staff made a public call for Better Banks in the New Zealand Herald this week days before negotiations with ANZ National and Westpac begin. Close to 1500 staff from these banks have signed up to the Appeal for Justice which is also posted on www.finsec.org.nz

Westpac Union Council Chair Maxine Mullen says that the advertisement has sent a loud and clear message to the banks that staff want fair pay, better staffing and to fix targets. “We’re also sending a message to bank customers that their concerns are our concerns. Quality service and ethical banking goes hand in hand with addressing pay, targets and staffing.”

Maxine said that non-members could influence the outcome of the negotiations by joining our union before negotiations start. “The more members we have, the stronger our position at negotiations. Already hundreds of new members have joined Finsec. We are stronger together.”