Sacked workers forced to train replacements

By Helen Pow

Sacked Westpac workers are being forced to train their replacements.

The Finance Sector Union says at least 188 employees have been made redundant in a large-scale restructure of the bank’s technology and back office divisions and up to 2000 Westpac jobs could go.

But The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that, before they leave, staff are being made to train Indian workers, here on temporary visas, at the bank’s Sydney CBD offices.

“She has been shadowing me, sitting next to me and I have to teach her how to do my day-to-day job,” Westpac staffer of 15 years, Russell Siachico, told The Sunday Telegraph.

“Basically sitting next to me like a sponge, sucking in as much information as possible. It’s devastating. I feel insulted and very low.”

After the so-called “knowledge transfer”, the overseas workers will return to India to teach their colleagues, who are paid far less than Westpac’s Australian employees.

The nation’s big four banks, which recorded profits of $24 billion last financial year, have quietly slashed more than 3300 jobs over the past 12 months. This week ANZ revealed its first tranche of official job cuts had begun, with 130 workers fired. CBA and NAB are expected to follow suit.

Most of Westpac’s ditched staff have vital roles ensuring the bank’s IT systems – such as internet banking – are free of bugs that could result in customers’ salaries not being paid on time or mortgage settlements not being processed correctly.

One Westpac staffer said the new recruits “don’t have any experience in testing systems and most of them have never worked in a bank”.

Another said: “It is extremely demoralising to train people who are highly incompetent to take your own role. We get constant stupid questions every single day. Basic tasks that we are expected to perform they can’t perform.”

In a letter obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, Westpac head of employee relations Michael Johnston admitted that sending Australian jobs overseas was “an important element of the Westpac Group’s strategy” and had been for “some time”.

He said staff had to “act professionally” in assisting their replacements.

“You will appreciate that there may be a greater level of assistance expected as part of any transition activities.”

The overseas workers are contracted to Westpac by outsourcing companies including Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services and have been brought to Australia on the employer-sponsored 457 visa.

But the government has warned that the companies could be breaching immigration rules by bringing in foreign staff to replace Australian employees. They are also required to pay the same rate.

FSU NSW acting secretary Veronica Black attacked Westpac, which made a $6.9 billion profit last year, for asking staff to “effectively facilitate the destruction of their own jobs”.

Westpac said it had “no specific targets” for redundancies and denied sending jobs offshore was about saving cash.

“This is not about cost. It’s about improving our skill capability by leveraging global scale of sourcing providers,” a spokeswoman said.

“In some instances, we are also looking at bringing specialist capability back into the business. We have been open and transparent with our employees and FSU and will continue to be.”

The Sunday Telegraph, January 22, 2012