Sunday, May 11, 2008


NEW ZEALAND LABOUR:
SAY NO TO OFF-SHORING OF KIWI JOBS:
The following appeal comes from Finsec, a New Zealand union for workers in the financial sector via the Labour Start online solidarity site(see our Links section under 'Other Interesting Links). Seems that the ANZ National bank is planning to outsource 500 back office jobs to India. visit the Finsec website to learn more and to send a message of protest to the bank.
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Say NO to off-shoring of Kiwi jobs
ANZ National bank has announced plans to relocate approximately 500 jobs in their back office Banking Operations area to Bangalore, India. This would be the largest off-shoring of jobs from the New Zealand finance sector and ANZ National would start a race to the bottom of banks cutting costs by moving work to developing countries where labour costs are significantly cheaper.

ANZ National is a profitable bank, who have been spending less to make every dollar of its huge profit in recent years, and they can afford to continue employing their staff in New Zealand. The bank says they will redeploy all of the staff but there is no guarantee that there will be secure, comparable jobs for everyone. The jobs are good jobs with good pay and their loss would be bad for the economy and employment opportunities in New Zealand.

Send an email to ANZ National CEO Graham Hodges to voice your opposition to the off-shoring of Kiwi jobs.
Click here to send the following email to Graham Hodges
Dear Graham Hodges, ANZ National CEO
All New Zealanders deserve job security.
Please do not send New Zealand jobs offshore in order to cut costs and increase your already large profits. Sending jobs offshore takes money out of our local economy, denies local workers good jobs with good wages, and threatens the quality of service to local bank customers.
Through sending jobs to India ANZ National would be leading a race to the bottom for cheap labour that can only hurt our country. We want banks that are loyal to New Zealand, and pay fair wages to local staff to deliver good customer service.
Please listen to your customers, communities and staff and do not send good New Zealand jobs offshore.
Better Banks
Agenda for Change
Finsec's goals for fairness in the finance sector:
Pay
*Annual across the board wage settlements of 5%.
*Continue to standardise pay for similar job across the industry through parity settlements.
Staffing
*Benchmark total staff numbers against the number of staff employed by the banks at the end of 1997.
*Increase the calculation of relief cover to 35 days per FTE.
*Reduce staff turnover through an annual retention bonus of $1000.
Targets
*De-link targets from all aspects of base pay and progression.
*Initiate industry talks on changing incentive schemes to make them fairer and reward service, ethical behaviours and have a longer term outlook.
Leave
*Achieve 5 weeks annual leave after 5 years of service.
Training
*To push for the establishment of a finance sector Industry Training Organisation to lead skill development and training within the sector
Legislation
Advance a Fair Lending Act that promotes fairness in banking, gives communities greater access to information about banks and greater control over how banks operate.

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