SACKED Westpac workers are being forced to train their Indian replacements.   

The Finance Sector Union says at least 188 employees have been made redundant in a large-scale restructure of the bank's technology and back office divisions and up to 2000 Westpac jobs could go.   

But The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that, before they leave, staff are being made to train Indian workers, here on temporary visas, at the bank's Sydney CBD offices.

"She has been shadowing me, sitting next to me and I have to teach her how to do my day-to-day job," Westpac staffer of 15 years, Russell Siachico, told The Sunday Telegraph. "Basically sitting next to me like a sponge, sucking in as much information as possible. It's devastating. I feel insulted and very low."


After the so-called "knowledge transfer", the overseas workers will return to India to teach their colleagues, who are paid far less than Westpac's Australian employees.   

The nation's big four banks, which recorded profits of $24 billion last financial year, have quietly slashed more than 3300 jobs over the past 12 months. This week ANZ revealed its first tranche of official job cuts had begun, with 130 workers fired. CBA and NAB are expected to follow suit.

Most of Westpac's ditched staff have vital roles ensuring the bank's IT systems - such as internet banking - are free of bugs that could result in customers' salaries not being paid on time or mortgage settlements not being processed correctly.

One Westpac staffer said the new recruits "don't have any experience in testing systems and most of them have never worked in a bank".

Another said: "It is extremely demoralising to train people who are highly incompetent to take your own role. We get constant stupid questions every single day. Basic tasks that we are expected to perform they can't perform."

In a letter obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, Westpac head of employee relations Michael Johnston admitted that sending Australian jobs overseas was "an important element of the Westpac Group's strategy" and had been for "some time". 

He said staff had to "act professionally" in assisting their replacements.

"You will appreciate that there may be a greater level of assistance expected as part of any transition activities."

The overseas workers are contracted to Westpac by outsourcing companies including Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services and have been brought to Australia on the employer-sponsored 457 visa.

But the government has warned that the companies could be breaching immigration rules by bringing in foreign staff to replace Australian employees. They are also required to pay the same rate.   

FSU NSW acting secretary Veronica Black attacked Westpac, which made a $6.9 billion profit last year, for asking staff to "effectively facilitate the destruction of their own jobs".   

Westpac said it had "no specific targets" for redundancies and denied sending jobs offshore was about saving cash.   

"This is not about cost. It's about improving our skill capability by leveraging global scale of sourcing providers," a spokeswoman said.

"In some instances, we are also looking at bringing specialist capability back into the business. We have been open and transparent with our employees and FSU and will continue to be."

Instead of teaching them how to do financial work, they should start by giving them acting lessons, so they can imitate other accents, because the moment I hear an indian voice on the phone, I think telemarketing, and hang up.
If everyone did as I do, we would have zero telemarketers annoying people, and exploiting the ones to naive to hang up.

The only way to fight Bastard Bankers, is to find NON-BASTARD alternatives, but they do seem to have us by the throat, and our choices are restricted to which Bastards are the least offensive.

mozzaok wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 6:57am:


QUESTION     IS THAT RACIST       HHHMMMM

FRED. wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 7:15am:



I dont wait that long - as soon as I identify that 5 second switching pause to connect to an O/S opperator I hang up.

FRED. wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 7:44am:



Not sure maybe sometimes - depends on the motivation.

Possably more nationalistic - not dealing with someone who is occupying an Australian job over seas.

A protest agains outsourcing.

Or maybe just out of annoyance - refusing to deal with someone you find difficult to understand on a call presented on a rude basis.

A call you do not want to accept independant of who it is on the other end. (cold call - survey, sales, marketing).

mozzaok wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 6:57am:


Do not hang up. Play the game. When they tell me I have been selected by Optarse to receive a free hand set I tell them I am excited. They go through the usual sales talk (how much per month do I spend on phone calls etc) and then ask me for my details. I reply that to provide that information I need to charge my usual 'information fee' of AUD $500. You can hear the frustration in their voice. "No No sir, the hand set if free but we must be having your details". I just repeat my 'sales talk' and say that my fees will be going up soon so take it or leave it. I have even been put through to a supervisor who tries to explain to me that I'm getting a free hand set. The end result is I don't get my $500 but they don't get a sale.

Have some fun with it.

salad in wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 9:01am:


I used to tell them I was only interested in the free phone and nothing else and then offer to give them my address to send me the so called FREE phone but then they would change their tune and so I would turn the conversation to how they were misleading in offering a free phone that wasn't actually free. Eventually they would give up LOL

Now I just register with dontcall.gov.au and haven't had any nuisance calls for years although I have had the odd hawker trying to bypass the rules with a bogus survey