The Finance Sector Union yesterday signalled it will pursue the highest pay claims at major banks in more than a decade after lodging an official call for annual pay rises of six per cent at Westpac.
A new round of enterprise talks between the union and Westpac kicked off in Sydney last week that will affect the incomes and working conditions of around 30,000 staff.
The Westpac talks are the opening instalment in a hectic season of industrial engagement in the banking sector that also includes a new bargaining round covering workers at the National Australia Bank.
FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano confirmed in an interview with Banking Day that the union would also be seeking minimum pay rises of six per cent for NAB staff.
Angrisano said the bargaining rounds with Westpac and NAB were the most important in decades given they were set in an environment marked by price inflation and uncertain working conditions caused by the pandemic.
“This does feel like a significant moment for enterprise bargaining, particularly because most staff at major banks have not shared in the ongoing profitability of the sector,” she said.
“It has been more than a decade since the union lodged pay claims at six per cent or more but we believe they are justified because real wages in the finance sector have been falling for many years and are now equivalent to the levels of 2015.
“In the twelve months to the end of March consumer inflation grew by 5.1 per cent but salaried incomes of most people employed in insurance and finance rose by only 2.3 per cent.”
Before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, banking sector workers were accustomed to winning average annual pay rises of around 4 per cent.
Those increases, which spanned a decade, were consistently ahead of inflation and represented real advances in pay.
Angrisano says the last fifteen years had seen an erosion of the real value of staff pay.
“We need to repair real wages that have been undermined by inflation and ensure that future pay increases reflect the contribution of staff to the industry’s very strong profits,” she said.
Angrisano said work intensification also looms as a key non-pay issue in the Westpac and NAB negotiations.
“Both banks have been going through program to simplify their businesses, which has involved major rationalisation of branch and back office roles,” she said.
“This has resulted in retained people being asked to do more for less.”
The union will also be pushing for the insertion of new clauses in enterprise agreements at both banks that would give most staff the right to work from home.
This looms as a contentious issue after several major bank CEOs, including NAB boss Ross McEwan, have spoken publicly about their preference for staff to return to their workplaces.
Angrisano said the FSU would be campaigning for major banks to extend the period of paid parental leave to 26 weeks.
Westpac, which has historically been a national pacesetter in adopting policies supportive of female staff, currently provides parental leave for 16 weeks.
Angrisano said the union would be seeking commitments from Westpac and NAB to ensure that parental leave was recognised as a gender-neutral entitlement.