FSU attacks Westpac over job cuts speculation

The Financial Sector Union (FSU) has criticised Westpac chief executive officer Gail Kelly for allegedly considering sending more than a thousand jobs overseas, with the union’s survey showing most employees rejected the reasons for the decision.

Kelly did not officially announce job cuts, but FSU secretary Leon Carter claimed Westpac used media briefings to flag the plan, with most mainstream publications reporting on it late last year.

Carter said the bank was planning to outsource back office operations to overseas companies, with client-facing jobs to be spared.

According to the FSU’s announcement, Kelly claimed that bank would again look at offshoring options because “unemployment is low and skills are at premium, and by doing so they would remove complexities and improve service”.

However, Carter claimed cutting costs, given the profit Westpac made, was unacceptable.

“If there is an employer in this country that can afford to keep every single one of its workers in place, it’s Westpac,” Carter said.

“More importantly, it is their obligation, given the amount of their profit from the community, to actually grow Australian jobs, not continually speculate and cause great concern to the back-office workers about whether they are going to keep their jobs or not.”

A recent FSU survey of around 3,200 bank employees found that 95 per cent believe that businesses making profits in Australia should reinvest in skills development and jobs here, with further 89 per cent disagreeing that sending jobs/functions offshore improved customer service.

“People who work in the back office work very hard every day to make sure that the customer-facing world can actually do their job,” Carter said.

“This notion that offshoring somehow delivers a dividend of better customer service is a complete and utter lie; it is not profitable to provide better customer service by sending Australian jobs overseas,” Carter said.