AIRC awards ANZ win in employee dispute

The Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) has ruled in favour of ANZ Banking Group over a two-year employee severance pay dispute relating to its joint venture armING Australia.

The resolution of the dispute, first heard in April 2002, will save the group having to pay several million dollars to 476 of the 479 ANZ employees who transferred to new roles shortly after the combined venture kicked-off in May 2002.

AIRC found that 321 of these individuals were transferred to the new entity with all the terms and conditions afforded to them under their previous roles within ANZ and that the group had provided satisfactory alternative positions within the joint venture.

While approximately 158 predominantly Melbourne-based ANZ employees within ANZ Funds Management were to remain in their roles with ANZ for a transitional period after which they would be redeployed elsewhere within the bank or retrenched and paid out on a redundancy basis.

All but three of this latter group accepted the offer.

The Finance Sector Union (FSU), which disputed the original move by the bank to alter elements of the Banking Services - ANZ Group - Award 1998, was disappointed with the decision, claiming employees were not given enough choice.

“We don’t think people should be traded on the open market like goods and chattel, and in our view these employees were never provided with the opportunity to be redeployed elsewhere within the ANZ bank,” FSU national security Paul Schroder says.

However at the same time the AIRC ruling the decision also reinforces the strict procedures groups considering outsourcing must adhere to, Schroder says.

“It has set a very high benchmark for companies looking to outsource,” he says.