BNZ Update

2 October 2007

KEY POINTS:

The BNZ shared its claims with Finsec representatives late last week. These claims involved significant rewriting of many sections of the collective agreement and require us to compare hundreds of pages across several documents to assess the full impact. We have not completed that task yet but hope to get a summary of those claims to you tomorrow.
However our current analysis is that the changes that BNZ is proposing to your terms and conditions are neither technical nor aesthetic. Many of them could in our view lead to worse protections, worse hours of work, and worse terms and conditions.

ACTION:

Please ensure that everyone on your worksite is aware that the bank has released its proposed claims to Finsec and you will be receiving a summary of those claims shortly.

Bank's claims -hours of work

While we have not been able to complete a thorough analysis of the bank's many claims so far, we have been able to identify some trends that give us concern. In particular we believe that the bank's claims, when presented as a package, undermine people's existing hours of work:

Some things the bank's claims include, that we have identified so far are:

Removal of your manager's discretion to approve extra paid domestic leave.
Ability for the bank to require you to work on public holidays.
A major re-write of the hours of work section of your collective agreement including the introduction of 'individual work schedules' and local autonomy for managers to open and close their individual branches at different hours.

Social working hours

BNZ wants the collective agreement to state: "The bank is operational seven days a week and 24 hours a day in some parts of the business - depending on the type of work being carried out and customer demand". Finsec believes this approach could negatively impact on the work-life balance of many employees, by jeopardising their ability to spend time with friends and family, participate in cultural or sporting events, go to church or just socially enjoy time with others who are not working.

Finsec's long standing position is that the bank has the right to conduct business at whatever time it wants but that agreed hours of work must be protected, and work over unsociable hours should be by choice and be compensated for.

Our position in negotiations will be to protect existing working conditions while also campaigning on our three key issues - a fair industry standard base pay rise, better staffing and fairer targets.

To do this we need your support

If people choose not to join Finsec and our campaign to help the BNZ become a Better Bank they risk sending the bank a signal that they agree with its claims and don't support Finsec's claims for better staffing better pay and better targets.

From the Union Council