News

Reports today in the The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times that ANZ bank plans to offshore at least 70 call centre jobs is a clear signal that we need a plan for the services sector, so there are jobs in the future for Australian workers and their kids.



“If we don’t do something now to stop Australian jobs going offshore, we are going to wake up in thirty years and wonder where all the good finance jobs are,” said Finance Sector Union National Secretary Leon Carter.



“More than 20% of ANZ’s recent profit bump was achieved by sacking workers. Today’s announcement that more jobs are going offshore is about the bank increasing their profit at the expense of Australian workers and their families,”



“ANZ is treating their loyal workers like they are an expendable commodity, and affected workers and their colleagues are angry about this latest announcement,” said Leon Carter.



“Finance workers feel more insecure than ever, even though employers like ANZ are more profitable now than they were before the GFC,”



“We have the ludicrous situation of enormously profitable companies like ANZ, who derive their profit from our community, failing to re-invest in the community they profit from. The can reinvest in jobs and skills here, and increase job security for finance workers, but they choose to send jobs offshore – jobs that are being done here, and jobs that should continue to be done here,” said Leon Carter.



“The FSU is very concerned about the workers affected, and we will provide as much support to these workers as we can. But the other concern we have is for ANZ’s customers, and the security of their data.”



“When you ring an ANZ call centre, you are ringing to discuss your banking details. You might be ringing about your mortgage, or your credit card, or your everyday banking. The person on the other end of the phone has access to your sensitive, personal financial data. If the person accessing your data is not within Australia, then the customer no longer has the protection of Australian law,” said Leon Carter.



“So not only do we have workers being thrown out of their jobs, we also have a greater risk to the security of customer data,”



“Australian companies like banks should be required to obtain customer consent before offshoring sensitive data,” said Leon Carter.

Contact:

Leanne Shingles, 0423 821 773 or leanne.shingles@fsunion.org.au