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  Issue No 100 Official Organ of LaborNet 29 June 2001  

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News

Bank Staff Forced to Flog Insurance


An entire branch of the ANZ has been threatened with dismissal for not meeting sales targets by pushing insurance products onto suburban bank customers.

All seven workers at Ingleburn branch of the ANZ have all been placed under performance review - meaning they are under a formal threat of dismissal - for failing to refer customers to enough house, car and income protection insurance products.

They argue that the sales targets are unfair and unreasonable given that most of the bank's customers are regulars who have their financial affairs under control.

Badgered on the Job

Julie Reynolds became the final staff member to be placed under review earlier this month just two days after she was disciplined for wearing a union badge to work - even though this is a right recognised by the High Court since 1913.

Reynolds says the fact the entire branch is under review is a sign that the targets don't work and actually undermine good customer service.

The Finance Sector Union has placed the practise of setting sales targets for bank staff on the agenda as it steps up its industry-wide campaign for fair wages and conditions.

Key concerns include:

- negative impact on service with tellers being forced to push unwanted products on regular customers.

- no difference in targets for tellers in depressed suburbs and affluent, commercial precincts.

- no training for staff in the actual products they are expected to sell

- ability of the bank to change products and increase targets sometimes retrospectively without any consultation with staff.

The FSU's Geoff Derrick says the practise is just another form of "intrusive performance monitoring" and is contributing to the decrease in customer service at local branches.

Campaign Ready To Roll

Meanwhile, this week marks the beginning of the FSU's biggest industrial campaign in 20 years after the banks failed to respond to a union deadline on enterprise bargaining.

The action will begin with rolling stoppages in regional bank branches such as Hunter Valley, and hit a different region next week.

Staff across the country are fed up and have indicated that they are prepared to walk off the job in a stand against the banks' refusal to consider reducing workloads and guaranteeing job security during the latest enterprising bargaining negotiations.

The action will include stop work meetings, bans and strikes and will involve all members at different times. It will be targeted to minimise customer disruption while sending a clear message to the bank about the need to make an improved offer to staff.

"It cannot be reasonable that you can have record profits, Boards awarding themselves 50% pay increases and CEO's earning up to $100,000 a fortnight, and at the same time you offer wage increases that are less than cost of living increases to those working in the front line of your operation" Derrick says.


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In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Baptism of Fire
It�s been a rugged few weeks for Labor Council�s new honcho. But John Robertson accepts it comes with the territory.
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*  Politics: Seven Days that Shook Our World
Chris Christolodulou surveys the wreckage from a week when the political and industrial wings of the labour movement collided.
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*  History: History Sometimes Repeat
This is not the first Labor government to attack workers compensation entitlements. Some believe the Unsworth Government�s 1987 reforms were the beginning of the end for that administration.
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*  Technology: Unions Online: Where To Now?
Social Change Online's Mark McGrath goes looking for what's on the virtual horizon for the union movement.
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*  Media: The Printed Word Revisited
Rowan Cahill looks at the resurgence of the workers press and the lessons for unions in better communicating with their members.
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*  Unions: Time For Second Gear
The trends are in the right direction but unions are still drinking small beer in the IT world and need to allocate more resources to communications generally, argues Noel Hester.
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*  Satire: Texan Governor Faces Execution
The governor of Texas has been sentenced to death row after a jury found him guilty of killing hundreds of people.
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*  Review: The Insider
Neale Towart looks at a literary anti-hero who brings the factional machinations and double-deals of the ALP machine out of the back rooms and into the light.
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News
»  Picket MPs Face More WorkCover Heat
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»  Della Tries a Henry VIII
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»  Privatisation Opens New WorkCover Front
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»  The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Virtual Democracy
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»  Bank Staff Forced to Flog Insurance
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»  Email Surveillance Report Gathers Dust
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»  Fifty Years On, Women Still Short-Changed
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»  Firefighters Withdraw Strike Threat
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»  Telstra�s Sells Off Skills Base
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»  BHP - Billiton Faces $1.8 Billion OHS Claim
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»  Activist Notebook
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»  STOP PRESS: Quite Frankly, Reith Goes!
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Picket at Parliament: Police Respond
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»  Time to Break
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»  Well Done for the Ton
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»  The Life and Soul of the Party
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»  A Tuckpointer Is ...
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