Zurich's initial EA proposal - the details

This information outlines only an initial proposal from Zurich management. FSU members have met and identified a number of issues and areas that need improvement.

FSU comments are in red.

Topic	Zurich’s Initial Offer (November 2023)
Duration	3 year agreement to commence 12 February 2024. Employees would be locked into the Agreement during this period of time. Pay and conditions must account for the economic climate over the period.
Wages	Guaranteed wage increase for employees below the overtime threshold irrespective of performance outcomes. Year 1 pay increase is 4% for under 90K TEC. First Full Pay Period (FFPP) 1 April 2024 4% Yr 1, 3% Yr2 and 2.5% Yr 3. All employees eligible for pay review based on performance. Applies to minority of staff below $90k threshold Performance-based reviews provide no certainty around pay increases; they are provided at the discretion of the employer. Zurich has provided no detail on how this methodology would be applied. Far below inflation of 5.5% Real wage cut over 3 years Would result in Zurich employees falling behind other industry colleagues in regard to pay
Who would be covered	Zurich propose that Senior Leadership Group employees would no longer be in scope of the new EA. This would mean that the current conditions for these employees would no longer be protected by an Enterprise Agreement.
Span of ordinary hours	Current span of hours of 7am–7pm to be increased by 2 hours to 7am–9pm Monday to Friday. Current span of hours for Saturdays of 9am–5pm which is one hour reduction compared to ANZ EA. This would result in overtime being lost after 7pm (current end of ordinary hours). Zurich have yet to outline how they will compensate staff for working beyond 7pm.
Hours of work	Bring all employees under a 36.25 hour week and increase salaries to compensate for reduced hours. Reduced hours without loss of salary may be considered a benefit. However, members have raised concerns around whether existing workloads can be completed within the reduced hours.
Access to overtime	Overtime threshold of $90k which is indexed by wage increase each year of the EA. Industry best practice has seen other employers provide a higher threshold. Members have called on Zurich to increase this threshold.
RDO entitlement	Remove access to RDO entitlement and replace with a purchase leave arrangement. Any employees who currently have access to RDO arrangements would lose this as a right and new arrangements would be on an approval basis only.
Annual leave loading	Remove annual leave loading arrangement for ex-ANZ employees and bought out both with an increase to salary by 1.35% and buy out of current accrued amount. Initial feedback from impacted FSU members is a preference to retain the 17.5% annual loading arrangement.
Inclusive leave entitlements	NO to 5 days First Nations People leave in the Agreement. NO to 5 days paid cultural and religious observance leave in the Agreement. NO to 6 days paid gender affirmation leave in the Agreement. Introduce 5 additional days of Z Leave. All employees get Z leave in year 1 regardless of if they have more than 15 days. 31 January each year is when they do the calculation for the Z leave entitlement (Checking less than 15 days annual) This leave does not accrue each year Zurich plan to remove 3 days of Summer Break leave, 1 day of spring break leave and 5 days of family emergency leave currently set out in policy Employees must have less than 15 days annual leave entitlement as at 1 January each year to receive this entitlement. Introduce 3 additional days Personal leave and 1 day Compassionate leave per occasion. Without access to the FSU proposed leave entitlements (above), employees would be required to access personal leave.
Family and domestic violence leave (FDVL)	NO to uncapped FDVL for employees experiencing FDV and employees supporting a family member of member of the same household. Increase to 20 paid days for all employees. Zurich’s proposal does not meet best industry practice of uncapped leave for both those experiencing FDV and those supporting others.
Redundancy provisions	Zurich propose that the current Zurich EA 2014 redundancy entitlements apply in new EA 2024 for all current and future employees and ex ANZ employees would have current entitlement grandfathered. Zurich have said NO so far to FSU claim that the better of the current two agreements should form part of the proposed new Agreement. This means those staff covered by the Zurich 2014 Agreement would miss out on improvements to their existing redundancy entitlements.