Savings & Loans and Australian Central Credit Unions

All I want for Christmas…

Your ASU Workplace Reps and Branch Secretary Katrine Hildyard recently met with Australian Central and Savings & Loans management to seek commitments about your wages and conditions under a merged credit union. Your ASU Organisers had recently asked you to endorse a set of principles to protect your wages and working conditions. Representatives of combined management have now considered the principles for which you are seeking commitment. What we can report back to you is a very mixed bag.

At this stage Savings & Loans employees are more likely to wake up on Christmas Day feeling like they have been left a lump of coal in their stocking even though they have done nothing wrong. Although Australian Central employees also have a lot to consider moving into the next 12 months it will initially be Savings & Loans employees with their conditions on the line.

How will our conditions be on the line?
If the proposed merger does go ahead both collective agreements will remain in place and continue to provide your working conditions and wages until a new collective agreement is negotiated for the merged credit union. Let's not kid ourselves- we all know there are vast differences in not only the content of both agreements but also the processes that create them. Australian Central and Savings & Loans management could not guarantee that conditions will not be worse off under a combined agreement!

Management have been able to guarantee Savings & Loans employees' service related entitlements are transferred to Australian Central and that current wages, conditions and consultation mechanisms remain in place for now. However the future for these issues is very unclear.

There are currently no policies and procedures to deal with issues such as job selection, job location, job change, redundancy, redeployment and training in the new merged credit union.

Your ASU will continue to work with you to achieve fair and reasonable processes for all staff.

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