In a sign of the need for banks and other big employers to catch up with a Labor government's landscape for industrial law, Westpac reached terms with the Finance Sector Union for a new enterprise agreement.The proposal, which would take effect on September 24, pays a four per cent annual pay increases to most employees in January 2011 and 2012, before expiring at the end of that year. It also pays an extra two per cent, on approval, to employees of Westpac who received a two per cent increase last year during the GFC, to bring them into line with the employees at subsidiaries St George and BankSA, who got a four per cent rise in October 2009 under that bank's enterprise agreement. Employees at supervisory and management level (O, A and M classifications) will receive a three per cent rise in January 2011 and 2012, plus, in terms provided in a side deal between the FSU and the company, increases from a four per cent performance pool. Under the proposed deal, Westpac will introduce, on a trial basis at six sites, a new "flexible part-time employee" category. The flexible part-timers will be engaged to work between 60 and 137 hours in a four-week cycle. In an associated change, Westpac will cap at 10 per cent (of the permanent headcount) the proportion of temporary employees in each business unit, and "where practicable", it will engage casuals directly rather than through recruitment and labour hire companies. The deal extends to all states - up from three state at present - arrangements under which employees can work ordinary hours on weekends. It gives employees the right to "opt out" of weeknight ordinary hours and refines loadings for night and weekend work.The deal provides that employees disadvantaged by the loadings changes - mainly at four call centres - will be compensated with a "transitional top up payment". The deal doesn't apply to most employees in Westpac's St George and Bank SA subsidiaries, such as their fund management arms. Read more atWorkplace Express