The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has disputed claims made by the Finance Sector Union (FSU) that it wanted members to vote for “wage theft” in its new enterprise agreement (EA).
The union accused the big four bank of offering a defective EA and pointed to previous actions where it had been caught not properly paying staff.
In a statement, the bank said after 11 months of “intensive negotiations” on a proposed new EA, it had told the union that it was approaching the right time for its people to express their choice about the new EA through a vote.
“The FSU took the opportunity to put its position to a vote of its members more than two months ago and did not receive sufficient support to take action to advance their claims,” CBA said.
“We believe the new EA represents the right balance of more pay, more leave, and better benefits that reflect what our people have told us they want.
“While fewer and fewer employees are using their RDOs [rostered days off] they will be grandfathered for all existing staff.
“The FSU has made it clear that it does not agree with us on RDOs despite our best intentions to find a resolution.”
The bank said it was “reprehensible” and “simply wrong” for the FSU to suggest that through this proposed EA, CBA was attempting to underpay its people or deprive them of any legal rights.
“We will continue to call out and correct misinformation from the FSU so that our people are able to make a fully informed view about the benefits this EA would deliver to them,” it said.
CBA said everyone on a current EA contract would get an increase for the 2020/2021 year of 3.25%, backdated to 1 July, 2020 once the new EA was approved. For those who were not, they would get the following:
- 3.25% for employees earning up to $75k;
- 2.25% for those between $75k and $110k;
- 2% for those between $110k and $153k; or
- 1.25% for those between $153k and $200.
When it came to leave, CBA claimed it was offering:
- Three days of “life” leave to be used for any purpose;
- Increased parental leave to 13 weeks (an additional one week’s leave);
- Personal and carers leave of 15 days a year (so CommSec employees come up from 10 days and Colonial First State up from 12 days as part of a harmonisation of leave across the group);
- Four weeks of secondary carers leave, up from three weeks; and
- “Sorry Business Leave” and gender affirmation leave.
For benefits it claimed to offer:
- RDOs had been grandfathered for existing/current staff;
- Greater flexibility in the way people work, hours work and remote working;
- Streamlining of current 38 grades to 11 grades; and
- Industry-standard annualised pay packages to be able to pay attractive and higher market salaries above EA minimums.
The bank said it would put the details of the new EA to 32,000 staff from next week so that they could consider how it refers to them individually.
It would then later be open for them to vote from 24 March with the ballot closing on 30 March.
