On Wednesday we met with CBA again. They had asked for some time to consider our positions. Particularly those on RDOs, Pay and Annualised Salary Packaging. They’ve come back with the following:
| CBA CONTRACT PAY INCREASE OFFER | LAST WEEK | THIS WEEK |
| $0 – $75,000 | 3% | 3% |
| $75,000 – $110,000 | 2.25% | 2% |
| $110,000+ | 0% | 1.5% |
- CBA are still not prepared to change their position on removing RDOs.
- CBA have committed to some of the protections we want for the annualised salary contracting provision, but not enough yet for us to be confident that they won’t be misused like IAs were.
CAN THEY DO THAT?
You’ll notice that CBA have decreased their pay offer for some colleagues while increasing it for some others. It’s disappointing, and it’s slow progress, but it’s still progress.
CBA can afford to pay everyone 3%. We don’t believe that there should be an arbitrary distinction between employees based on the contracts CBA put you on. Our claim is 3% for everyone. Our claim is fair.
THEIR PLAN TO UNDERMINE OUR DEMANDS:
CBA also indicated that they intend to pay the increases soon whether we’ve agreed or not. This isn’t just unfair, it’s unlawful. Parties are bound to bargain in “good faith” when they negotiate agreements like this, and it’s the FSU’s view that if CBA pay any increases out before they’ve been negotiated, then it constitutes an act of bad faith.
We’ve written to the Bank to tell them that this would be an act of bad faith and to warn them that we won’t let unfair conduct like this slide. We wanted you to hear it from us first.
Any payment before we have agreed on the amount is one designed to weaken our ability to secure fair increases for everyone. CBA should not pay increases until they’re fair, agreed increases.
CBA are dragging their feet because they want us to get tired and just take what we’re given. They want to divide workers up arbitrarily because of how powerful your solidarity has been. We can’t let them do this.
Of course we all want payrises paid ASAP. It’s worth remembering that your payrises will be backdated to 1 July either way.
Your actions have brought us this far. From 1.5% to here. If we stick together, we can secure a fair agreement.
There are three things left before the FSU can say that this is a fair agreement. Three things that CBA could easily agree to. Three things they should agree to.
WHAT’S STOPPING CBA AGREEING? WE’RE SO CLOSE!
We all want to get this agreement done. We want it done as soon as possible, but we need the agreement to be fair. We could get this done tomorrow, so long as RDOs are retained, 3% increases for everyone are included and the contracting clause is fairer.
Your actions have moved CBA significantly, we just need to keep standing together, and make sure CBA know that we won’t be divided up by contract type. All we’re asking for is a fair agreement.
3 SIMPLE THINGS WE CAN DO TO BACK IN OUR CLAIMS:
- Get your colleagues on board today. We’re fighting for a fair outcome for everyone, and we know we’re stronger together. We’ve seen that already. Most of our new members tell us that they’ve just never been asked before! So ask a colleague today!
- Send the CBA negotiators an email now. Let them know that you understand that this would be an act of bad faith designed to undermine our collective claim, and that it’s not going to work. What we are asking for is fair.
- We’ve revamped our petition and brought it up to date. Get this petition to everyone you know at CBA. Our best defence against CBA’s divide and conquer approach is our unity and solidarity. We can only have that if we reach out to others and let them know what’s going on! Here’s the link: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/cba-should-do-better/
We won’t give up, it’s a shame that CBA are taking so long to come to our fair proposals – but if we stick together, we can make this happen!
In Unity,
FSU