Finance Sector Union (FSU) national secretary Leon Carter said more job losses will hit the industry after the heads of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Bankwest breached their commitments to not fire staff.
CBA chief executive Ralph Norris and Bankwest managing director Jon Sutton said they were absolutely standing by their commitment of no forced retrenchments in Western Australia in the last six months in meetings with the FSU, according to Carter.
Carter said to find out about Bankwest's job cuts via a newspaper and have it confirmed yesterday that workers were lied to leaves them at the point where they're asking "what's next?"
"If we can't even trust the word of the CEOs who run our organisations then what is next? Then, you know ... it's clear that if they're prepared to break their word on this sort of stuff then this is the thin edge of the wedge. There'll be more job losses to come."
Bankwest, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CBA, said about 250 roles on the west coast and 150 on the east coast will be made redundant this year.
No retail customer-facing roles will be lost in stores and customer help centres, nor will any stores close, Bankwest said.
Although Sutton had said there would be no job losses in 2009, the rapidly deteriorating economy meant the lender had to make adjustments if it was to remain an efficient and viable business, Bankwest said.
Bankwest was unable to make further comment by press deadline.
CBA retrenched around 200 staff in some underperforming divisions and others that are not expected to perform in the next year or two, CBA's Norris said in February.
