Members of the Finance Sector Union (FSU) have voted to take protected industrial action 'following the refusal of Insurance Australia Group (IAG) to honour agreements on pay and conditions made before Covid-19.'
The union says an ‘in-principle’ agreement had been reached which was about to be finalised when Australia was placed into lockdown in March.
Instead of the previously agreed 2% salary increases over three years, IAG is offering 1% for the first two years and 1.5% for the third.
FSU National Assistant Secretary Nathan Rees said IAG had been notified that staff at the insurer will be taking their case for protected industrial action to the Fair Work Commission.
“Workers at IAG have been working hard through devastating bushfires, floods and now Covid-19 to maintain services to customers only to be rewarded by a pay offer that falls short of what is reasonable,” Rees said.
“Having reached agreement in principle, IAG has spent the last several months dragging its feet before telling staff they weren’t worth a decent pay rise and walking away from its previous offer.”
“This is an appalling breach of faith by an employer which fails to understand that a company’s greatest asset is its staff, who have worked hard through difficult circumstances this year to keep IAG in business.”
Rees said IAG has further angered its staff by refusing to include ‘job security’ and ‘working from home’ clauses in the agreement.
“IAG has now insisted that not even its paltry pay offer is guaranteed, instead pay increases will be related to performance and meeting targets.”
“IAG staff believe those targets are unreasonable because they haven’t been uniformly adjusted even though economic circumstances have changed radically.’
“Our members at IAG are calling on the insurer to think again and revise its offer before it further erodes staff loyalty and morale.”