Commonwealth Bank has been cornered into providing a series of undertakings to the Fair Work Commission to get its latest Enterprise Agreement over the line, with the bank damned in the final decision of the FWC over misleading, even deceitful, explanations to the bank’s staff of the terms of the new deal earlier this year.
Broadly, the bank’s misstep was to simplify, unacceptably, the probability that all staff would receive the headline pay rise for each pay band and to downplay material terms (such as poor performance reviews blocking any raise).
These blunders will push up the cost of the pay rises agreed for most of the bank’s staff. Subject to meeting eligibility criteria, the bank's staff will receive annual salary increases of 3.25 per cent effective from 1 July 2020 and 3 per cent effective 1 July 2021 (next Thursday).
It is the reputation costs and exposure (yet again) of unreliable risk management disciplines for CBA that are most relevant in the decision of a three-member FWC panel chaired by Deputy President Alan Colman, and handed down on Wednesday.
“We have a concern that the employers did not take all reasonable steps to explain the Agreement and the effect of its terms,” the FWC panel wrote in its decision.
Throughout a year or so of negotiations with the Finance Sector Union and consultation with its staff, CommBank adopted a belligerent tone in pursuit of a 25-year strategic goal (dating from the David Murray era) to progressively marginalise the influence of the former Commonwealth Bank Officers Association.
Unable to agree the terms for the EA, notably salaries and the fine detail of proposed pay rises, the union campaigned for a No vote in a vote of all eligible CBA employees in March.
The FWC decision noted 13,095 employees voted in favour, while 7,746 employees voted against. The ruling also observed that the trade union “has only some 5,100 members” at CommBank, around 17 per cent of the employees covered by the Agreement.
The bank’s human resources department orchestrated an avalanche of summary documents and supporting media to promote the terms and merits of the EA.
The pitch in one video ‘question and answer’ session video narrated by Sian Lewis, group executive of human resources at CBA the FWC branded “inaccurate, because they conveyed to employees that pay increases were guaranteed by the Agreement when in fact they are not.”
Lewis said in this pitch that employees will receive a ‘guaranteed pay increase’, repeating this in the form of ‘a guaranteed pay rise’.
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The FSU, fighting a rear guard action to derail an Enterprise Agreement supported by two thirds of bank staff centred its opposition to a final approval of the EA on Lewis’ misleading statements.
In the decision, the FWC allowed “that our concern can be met by the provision of an appropriate undertaking”.
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In a furious media release yesterday, FSU National Secretary Julia Angrisano said that “in CBA’s arrogance they decided to head to a vote and lie to sell a bad deal.
“Our members look forward to hearing whether CBA acknowledge that