Work today, get paid a year later at CBA
Friction may be building between staff and management at Commonwealth Bank over the terms of their next pay deal, with the bank putting an end to negotiations with the Finance Sector Union.The FSU spelled out the state of play for members in a bulletin on its website last week."After 11 negotiation meetings the bank has now broken off talks with no enterprise agreement in sight," the union advised its members. "When the union refused to agree to the bank's pre-conditions for continuing the talks, the CBA advised that it was ending the negotiations." The FSU said those pre-conditions "included requiring the union to agree to a lower pay increase than has already been agreed in Westpac and NAB. The bank also insisted that we drop our efforts to fix individual contracts that have excluded many staff from pay negotiations and excluded them from important protections around excessive hours and workloads."The union concluded there seemed "little prospect" that negotiations would happen in the near future.CBA offered annual pay increases ranging from 2.75 per cent to 3.25 per cent.The bank also proposed "constantly variable rosters with 20 per cent of pay held back until the end of the year," the union said.The FSU also reported that it had finalised negotiations with ANZ for a two-year enterprise agreement. Eligible staff will get a 3.5 per cent pay rise this year and 3.25 per cent next year.The FSU said it had succeeded in breaking the link between pay rises and performance targets for "non-market rated" staff.