Commonwealth Bank: Record profits, Record job cuts,will you be next ? : Melbourne Indymedia

Commonwealth Bank: Record profits, Record job cuts

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has announced a net profit of
$2,665 million for the year ending June 2002 (up 11 percent on the
previous year), and that it intends to sack 3700 staff in the next three years.

Despite significant losses associated with the collapse of Enron and
Pasminco, in the last financial year the Bank added $327 million to its
funds under management. Retail deposits grew 10 percent to $64.2
billion, and housing loans soared 16 percent to $92.9 billion.

The growth in profits in recent years has moved in inverse proportion to
staff levels. The more staff they cut, the bigger the profits.

In the four and a half years to February 2000 the CBA reduced its
full-time staff by 6000 positions. The numbers on the books then rose
with its takeover of the Colonial Bank, but since then another 7537
positions have been slashed.

If the newly announced job cuts go ahead then more than 15,000 jobs will
have been destroyed since the mid-'90s. No wonder they are making such
huge profits!

The Bank last week acknowledged that the 2002-2003 financial year's
massive returns were due to the hard work of its staff, on which it
lavished great praise, only to reward them with the promise of more
sackings.

The CBA plans to spend $120 million this year to cover "systems changes,
re-engineering of overall processes and staff redundancies".

In a wonderful example of double-speak, the Bank then announced that
despite these initiatives it nevertheless did not intend to engage in
"restructuring". Although the Bank will "take a $120 million post-tax
restructuring charge in 2003", CBA chief Executive David Murray
commented that "We prefer not to if we can avoid it as (restructuring
provisions) represent an element of profit smoothing."

Whichever way the bank cares to describe it, their intention is still to
engage in a mass elimination of jobs. The bank expects to hire some 550
new staff, but had previously nominated some 500 employees for
retrenchment, and has now announced that it intends to issue a further
1550 members of its staff with their marching orders.

The bank noted that: "While every attempt will be made to redeploy
displaced staff, where this is not possible staff will receive a
redundancy package." However it is done, there will be a net loss of
another 1550 jobs this year.

The bank also alluded to economically difficult times ahead, in a weak
attempt to justify its current huge profit rate and its ruthless
staffing policy. This may also be a hint that further cuts lie ahead.

"Against the background of this uncertain and challenging environment,
the bank needs to adapt in order to ensure its continued
competitiveness", thundered the Bank's CBA CEO, David Murray.

Meanwhile, the remaining staff slave away under mounting pressure of
work and the stress of dealing with irate customers who are sick of the
long queues and ever mounting profit-swelling fees.

The bank says it will at this stage retain some branches that it had
previously scheduled for closure: At best, this is a temporary measure.

The overall number of bank branches will certainly not increase, and no
attempt will be made to rectify the personal, social and economic damage
caused by bank closures in recent years, particularly within rural and
regional communities.

The employees' union, the Finance Sector Union, is reluctant to take
industrial action regarding the retrenchments, because of the Howard
Government's industrial relations laws, which could incur huge penalties
outside enterprise bargaining periods.

The union has already extracted an extra month for employees to seek
alternative employment within the bank, and is gearing up for a fight to
ensure that management really does make every effort to redeploy displaced
staff.

The union is planning a "work to rule" campaign.

The Victorian Secretary of the FSU, Ms Sharron Caddie, commented: "It
would be difficult for the union to take protective industrial action,
but the bank is relying on remaining staff to pick up the work and we
will do what we can to make sure this doesn't happen."

The CBA has scrapped plans to reward its executives with a very handsome
options package, partly because of objections from its shareholders, but
also because of public criticism of HIH executives who helped themselves
to amazingly generous "packages" from the corporate till.

Criticism from the public about its huge staff redundancy rate has had
little or no effect on staffing policy.

The bank is in large part obliged to the Howard Government for its
profits, which derive in large measure from its ability to screw down
employee numbers.

After all, it was the Government that brought in the industrial
relations laws outlawing industrial action outside enterprise bargaining
periods and undermining the centralised award system.

With regard to the bank's profits and its employment policies, Treasurer
Peter Costello attempted to assume an air of impartiality, announcing
loftily that "It is certainly not the policy of this Government to argue
the merits or demerits of bank decisions."

But he couldn't restrain himself, and immediately went on to praise the
bank's decision to maintain its current number of branches, and also its
profit result, which, he said, highlighted the health of the banking
sector as a whole.

It's good to know who your friends really are.sowhere does the government get its 5.8% unemployment numbers from, with all these poor workers getting the sack.

maybe we the people of australia are being lied too in a big way...