ANZ Bank in Fiji denies union exploitation claims

CEO Norman Wilson tells Bruce Hill they are not exploiting their workers, but simply following local laws.

Presenter: Bruce Hill

Speaker: CEO of the ANZ Bank in Fiji, Norman Wilson

WILSON: The main complaint from Mr Rae would appear to be the registration of the ANZ bargaining unit. What he hasn't actually specified is that we have two entities here; one is the main ANZ bank, and the other is an operations centre that services the other 11 countries we operate in the Pacific. The main bank always had a union, they had two unions, the manager's union and the staff union. The other operation wasn't unionised, mainly because it has to operate across 11 borders, and it's not viable to unionise an entity like that and certain other central banks wouldn't allow us to take on business from other jurisdictions. When the ENI decree came in they requested that or they applied so that operations unit was included in the overall ANZ entity, which we objected to. It took several months to have that operation excluded, but as soon as it was excluded then we actually pressed the Prime Minister's office to have our bargaining unit included. We also voluntarily recognised our bargaining unit without any election, without the need to prove a majority, and we've been in discussions with that unit at the earliest possible stage.

HILL: Is the ANZ bank happy to work under this Essential National Industries decree, or is it the sort of thing that perhaps makes the bank a bit uncomfortable, because it's a very different environment from what you'd get back in Australia say?

WILSON: Absolutely, I mean we were told we were in it as and when it was declared. We have to observe the laws of the country we operate in, but to be quite honest if the decree was repealed overnight we would continue to have these discussions with staff. And I stress that the discussions we've been having with our staff have actually been ongoing for three or four years.

HILL: Mr Rae uses some pretty strong language, brutal and ruthless, socially unconscionable, accuses the bank of trying to marginalise workers. Why would he use such strong language if as you're suggesting, you're just working within the law in Fiji?

WILSON: Well I can only assume it's jargon, to give you an example we made 40 people redundant. Of these 40 people only three or four were actual bank workers, the rest were domestic servants, gardeners, tea ladies, what I would describe as hangovers from the colonial era. And out of the 40 that we made redundant, 15 were above retirement age and another 15 were within five years of retirement age. They all got very, very generous packages. We offered it to 43 people, 36 offered to take it, only seven re-applied for other roles that we were offering from redeployment, of which five were given those other roles. And if he thinks we're being inhumane, I'll quote one example, the gardeners who used to look after our expatriate residences, we actually encouraged them to form a collective and to re-apply tender for doing all the gardening for the bank properties, and they've been successful in doing that. And they're now earning about 50 per cent more than they were previously. And I think also Mr Rae made comments about expatriates, in the last three years we've reduced our expatriate numbers from six down to four full-time expatriates at the moment.

HILL: So from your perspective the ANZ bank's not marginalising workers and they're actually able to effectively represent their own interests to the bank management?

WILSON: Absolutely and we're in discussions with them, and do you know we would put out that there were actually two unions here; the overall staff union that Mr Rae represents, and there's also a managers union, which had a membership of just under 60 people. Now under the ENI decree, it states that any body with a representation of less than 75 cannot form a bargaining unit. We actually went above and beyond the terms of the decree and encouraged those managers to join the overall staff union. And we've actually made it quite clear we want to negotiate with staff as a whole body. He mentions about the fact that we're getting a six-million dollar tax windfall, that's to do with a drop in corporate tax. I'd point out that if he looked the year beforehand, there was a decree that imposed a 15 per cent branch profits tax for two years, which actually was a 12-million dollar extra tax. So you're only hearing one side of the story there. And the other thing I'd say is there are absolutely no changes in conditions to our staff, and in fact under the ENI decree terms we continue to recognise the existing collective agreements.