Latest news

Two peak finance employer groups, Australian Business Industrial and Business NSW, have applied to the Fair Work Commission to vary the Banking, Finance and Insurance (BFI) Award – the award that establishes the minimum rights and working conditions for all finance workers. 

How are they attacking our penalty rates? 

Finance employer groups are seeking to vary the BFI Award to include an ‘exemption rate’ clause. This clause would allow employers to pay employees an annualised salary (a flat rate), which would replace things like allowances, overtime, penalty rates and annual leave loading. 

The kicker is that this annualised salary would have 50 hours built into our normal working week. This means we could be expected to work an additional 12 hours per week. 

Make no mistake, workers will be far worse off under this proposal. It would result in a complete winding back of our entitlements we’ve worked so hard to secure and which we rightly deserve. 

Big business would not be proposing this change unless they thought it would result in bigger profits for them. 

Don’t we already have an annualised salary clause? 

Yes, the BFI Award already contains a similar clause, though it provides protections for employees to ensure those of us on annualised salaries are not disadvantaged. 

Importantly, the clause includes a detailed list of obligations employers must meet, such as record-keeping and annual reviews of salaries. 

In other words, employers want annualised salaries but without the benefits and protections that employees currently receive to ensure we are paid correctly and fairly. 

How are employers justifying their proposal? 

Incredibly, employers are arguing that award requirements to record work hours are “highly impractical and undesirable”, and that working from home arrangements make recording office hours unworkable. 

Translation: employers don’t want the hassle of having to adhere to the BFI Award. They’d rather do things their way. 

What can we do to protect our penalty rates and other award entitlements? 

This is a disgraceful attack on finance workers’ pay, and the Finance Sector Union will fight this every step of the way. 

This proposal is the clearest sign yet that banks and big business are trying to implement Peter Dutton’s industrial relations agenda of stripping away our workplace rights and conditions. 

Peter Dutton and the LNP went after penalty rates for hospitality and retail workers when they were last in government. Now they’re coming after ours. 

It sets a dangerous precedent for other employers. All Australian workers should be alarmed. 

The upcoming federal election is our opportunity to push back and make sure Dutton and employers don’t get their way. You can get involved here. 

The entire union movement stands against this. If you know a colleague who isn’t a member of the FSU, ask them to join today so we can stand together against this appalling attack.