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• Westpac industrial action could spread Westpac industrial action could spread April 15, 2005 - 3:44PM Page Tools Industrial action threatened by Victorian Westpac workers over stalled enterprise bargaining could spread interstate unless senior management improves its offer to workers by May 1. About 300 Westpac workers, members of the Financial Sector Union (FSU), stopped work today to attend a union meeting at Melbourne's Athenaeum Theatre, leaving many metropolitan branches and some country branches short-staffed. They also voted to extend stopwork action to allow them to attend the meeting for the rest of the day, causing further disruption for Westpac customers at many branches in Melbourne and in some country centres. FSU national assistant secretary Cath Noye said union members were angry that enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations had not progressed in 10 months, and that issues over pay, staffing and increased workloads had not been resolved. She said the bank set unrealistic sales targets for retail staff and this was affecting workers and the bank's service. Advertisement Advertisement The bank had offered workers an annual four per cent payrise but this was less than increases at other banks and would cost members some conditions, Ms Noye said. Workers voted to give management a deadline of May 1 to better its EBA offer and to address workers on issues including staff turnover, workplace bullying, workloads and job security, or face possible bans or strikes. "They are continually forced to work unpaid overtime. They are continually forced to work extra hours and now we are being asked to give up weekends and all for no extra money, no extra staff," Ms Noye said. "I think members today have said to Westpac: 'Enough is enough'." Today's vote could lead to strikes in other states, Ms Noye said. "This comes off the back of action taken in South Australia two weeks ago, and I'd suggest there would be rolling stoppages across the country if Westpac doesn't actually come through with some of its rhetoric," she said. Westpac spokesman David Lording said all branches remained open despite the stopwork. He said less than 10 per cent of staff attended the meeting and the bank thanked workers for minimising disruption to customers. "All branches opened at the usual time today and continued to provide a high level of service to Westpac's customers," he said. Despite the lack of agreement between the FSU and Westpac, the bank had passed on a four per cent pay increase on October 1 last year and introduced initiatives including increasing the level of paid parental leave from six to 12 weeks, Mr Lording said. - AAP