By Gareth Vaughan
Westpac NZ's CEO Peter Clare says he wants the bank to have an environment like the All Blacks and staff need "challenging but achievable" goals to help foster this.
Speaking to interest.co.nz after Westpac posted a 17% rise in half-year cash profit to $432 million, Clare declined to confirm or deny interest.co.nz's earlier report that the bank had agreed to 3.4% per annum pay increases with FIRST Union in its bi-annual collective bargaining last week. Clare said he couldn't comment publicly because the agreement hadn't been taken to staff.
"(But) certainly if 3.4% was to be correct, it's significantly higher than the current inflation rate (the Consumer Price Index was 1.5% in the March year), and that would represent some increase in real income to the recipients of an increase like that," said Clare.
FIRST Union says about 1,200 Westpac staff are members of the union, but about 2,500 Westpac workers are eligible for coverage by its collective agreement with the bank. Westpac has about 4,700 staff.
Asked about FIRST Union's criticism of banks' sales targets for staff, Clare said Westpac has an "excellent" relationship with the union.
This is an abridged version of this article. The full version was published in our email for paying subscribers. See here for more details and how to subscribe.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.