Enterprise negotiations between the National Australia Bank and the Finance Sector Union have entered a critical phase, with the union’s bargaining team issuing warnings on social media for the company to improve its pay offer or face industrial action.
In a video posted on YouTube this week, FSU bargaining representatives call on the bank to meet the union’s claim for 6 per cent pay rises to avert industrial action.
NAB is standing by an offer to grant a 5 per cent pay increase to staff earning under A$100,000 in the first year of the agreement followed by a 4.5 per cent rise in the second year.
Staff earning above $100,000 are being offered rises of 4 per cent and 3.5 per cent over the next two years.
However, FSU bargaining representative Meg Nair told FSU members in the YouTube video that the bank’s offer amounted to a real pay cut for staff covered by the enterprise deal.
Nair said during the enterprise negotiations the bank’s bargaining team had attempted to justify a pay cut for staff, which she described as “disappointing”.
“We are overworked but undervalued,” she said.
“If NAB won’t act then we must take action – we would prefer not to but industrial action is what it will take for Ross (NAB CEO Ross McEwan) and the executive team to take us seriously.
“That is a position they have put us in.”
Talks between the bank and the union are due to resume on 12 October with the bank expected to respond to union concerns regarding staff workloads by 18 October.
The bank’s response to that issue could be a trigger for an FSU ballot on whether to take industrial action.
Another key issue to emerge during the negotiations relates to leave provisions in the new agreement.
The threat of stopwork and other action at NAB comes as the union ramps up its campaign against Westpac’s decision to discontinue enterprise talks and put a pay offer to a staff vote later this month.
Westpac is offering staff earning up to 94,550 a 4 per cent pay rise plus a one-off cash sweetener of $1000. Staff earning up to $118,000 are in line for a 3.5 per cent increase plus the one-off payment.
The union claims on its website that thousands of Westpac staff have committed to voting against the bank’s pay offer.
Last week the FSU applied to the Fair Work Commission for a hearing on Westpac’s conduct during the enterprise bargaining period, claiming that the bank had not engaged in the process in “good faith”.