ANZ has confirmed it’s considering plans to sack about 600 Melbourne call centre staff and send their jobs overseas.
Finance Sector Union national secretary Leon Carter had claimed an ANZ internal memo outlined plans to close the company’s call centre in Mulgrave and move the jobs to the Philippines and New Zealand.
ANZ said this morning the internal memo is a “draft proposal”
If approved, the move is expected to affect about 340 jobs.
A further 250 positions at ANZ’s South Melbourne office are also expected to go.
Carter said that while ANZ described the plan as a proposal, he did not feel confident about the future of the jobs.
“They’re trying to spin it up that they are just at the review stage, but our experience is that they never get this far down the road without going ahead with the decision,” he said.
Carter said the uncertainty was upsetting for the bank’s workers.
“We’re not talking about Ford workers who are working for a company that is genuinely struggling,” he said.
“We’re talking about people who go to work for one of the most profitable companies in this entire country who have no right to hold the ongoing employment of their workforce over their heads.”
ANZ spokesman Stephen Ries described the memo as a “draft proposal to senior management”.
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He denied any decision had been made about Melbourne call centre jobs, adding that one wouldn’t be made in the near future.
“Many ideas and proposals come up from time to time. They inevitably change. So, we’re not going to speculate what’s going to happen in the future,” he said.
Ries said Melbourne would remain the company’s main call centre for Australian customers.
“No decision has been made about our Mulgrave call centre,” he said.
