18-07-2025
Commonwealth Bank of Australia taken to Fair Work Commission by Finance Sector Union for allegedly offshoring hundreds of jobs to its subsidiary CBA India
Australia's largest company has been taken to court for allegedly breaching a contract by outsourcing hundreds of local jobs to India.
The Finance Sector Union said it has commenced action in the Fair Work Commission against Commonwealth Bank of Australia for allegedly breaching the CBA Enterprise Agreement.
CBA has been accused of defying Clause 36 of the agreement which defines redundancy.
Redundancy can occur, according to the clause, if the work is no longer required, the work is required to be done at a different location that is not within reasonable commuting distance or if the work is restructured so that the tasks are split up to other positions.
The FSU said the bank informed the union on June 10 that 304 redundancies across technology and retail banking jobs were taking place, while it was recruiting for about 100 jobs for CBA India.
About 110 of the jobs impacted by the redundancies had a job ad based in India with the same job title, the FSU says.
These include positions such as senior software engineers, staff data engineer, staff software engineer, engineering manager, software engineer and senior data engineer.
FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano tore into the major bank for its action and said it had caused "outrage" amongst its members.
"By hiring for the same job, at their own Indian subsidiary, they're showing themselves to have breached the Enterprise Agreement and essentially lied to their workers," Ms Angrisano said in a statement.
"This is the very definition of bad faith."
She said the redundancies were "proof" the big banks have a preference for offshoring Australian jobs to boost their bottom lines.
"These jobs are not required to be done in India; they're just moving the work there to take advantage of cheaper labour and further line their own pockets," Ms Angrisano said.
'All Australians are paying for the sham redundancy actions of the CBA.
"Not only are Australian workers being unfairly and reasonably sacked but this is being subsidised by all taxpayers. Bona fide redundancies are taxed concessionally in the hands of the workers.
"It is especially disgusting that the nation's richest company is also reducing the tax take as it makes the final payment to hundreds of Australians that we know are being sacked solely to have their work performed offshore.'
A CBA spokesperson rejected the union's claims and said it had met with representatives to "assure them that there is no basis to their allegations".
"During the formal consultation on recent workforce changes, the FSU did not raise any concerns with us about like-for-like job changes," the spokesperson said.
The CBA spokesperson earlier on Friday said no dispute had been filed with the Fair Work Commission, however, she has since acknowledged the action has been lodged.
The lastest row between the FSU and CBA follows the union attacking the bank for slashing more than 150 roles just days after revealing a $2.6 billion quarterly profit.
It also comes after the FSU demanding answers from CBA over the axing of 164 jobs from the bank's technology division.
Just weeks after this, the FSU hit out over plans to axe 90 roles at CBA's subsidiary Bankwest.
