ANZ facing pay blues

Friction is building between ANZ and the Finance Sector Union following a bank offer to some employees for an extra 0.75 percentage point pay rise if they forego select conditions.

The bank had already proposed pay increases of three per cent and 4.5 per cent over the next two years, but dependent on more flexible work schedules for staff.

A version of the ANZ offer circulated by the FSU yesterday contended the bank's proposal "seeks to remove some redundancy protections, extend ordinary working hours, remove incentive loadings, and may lessen job security."

FSU national secretary, Fiona Jordan, said the proposal "seeks to attack working hours removing loadings for thousands of workers, maintain caps on salaries, significantly undermine redeployment protections and introduce casualised, flexi part-time roles that will replace permanent roles."

ANZ told staff on Friday its plan "includes our span of ordinary hours of work in line with spans already in place at our major competitors, and enhancements to our redeployment arrangements aimed at having more of our people stay with ANZ following restructures."

Jordan said of this: "Describing plans to remove employees' redundancy protections as 'enhancements to arrangements' while continuing to offshore jobs and introduce major change, is disingenuous," in a circular to union members.

"The only 'enhancement' being sought here is for the bank to remove employees' rights to appropriate recompense when their jobs are made redundant by forcing them into unsuitable, substantially different roles instead," she said.