Bankwest has denied suggestions that customer-facing roles will be included in the job cuts it announced today.
According to Bankwest, around 250 back-office support roles on the west coast and 150 on the east coast will be made redundant this year.
However, Financial Sector Union (FSU) national policy director Rod Masson said a briefing between the FSU national secretary and the bank today suggested that there might be customer-facing roles affected on the east coast.
“There’s been some discussion about 10 or 15 of the 150 over on the east coast being customer facing roles but we just don’t know who they are,” Masson said.
Masson said it could involve tellers or planners, “we just don’t know who they’re targeting at this point”.
Although unsure exactly who will be affected, according to Masson, of the 250 job cuts identified in Western Australia, indications pointed to the roles being those which provide back-office support to the eastern coast branches of Bankwest.
“It seems to us that that’s a fairly large cut and at the same time we’ve been given information to suggest that the east coast branches are going to remain, so the question is, who’s going to be doing the work in the support functions for those branches?”
Bankwest managing director Jon Sutton acknowledged that when he assumed the role of managing director late last year he believed there would be no job losses in 2009, but the rapidly deteriorating economy meant Bankwest had to make adjustments if it was to remain an efficient and viable business.
“The deteriorating national and Western Australian economies and a high cost base mean Bankwest has no choice but to cut costs to remain competitive,” he said.
Masson said those cutting jobs in the industry had to start honouring their commitments on employment in the sector.
“Our recent figures are starting to look in excess of 7,000 now in terms of jobs being cut across the industry. So if they want a war on jobs it’s right here, right now in this industry.”
Masson said discussions would occur between the FSU and its Bankwest members both in Western Australia and on the east coast on how they want to respond.
“We’ll obviously be talking to our Bankwest members in Western Australia about how they want to respond to what is ultimately a real “kick in the guts”, Masson said.
Sutton said Bankwest would continue to be run as an independent bank headquartered in Perth.
