BIGWU’s new president rejects one-size-fits-all 10 per cent deal

New­ly elect­ed Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) pres­i­dent Deb­bie-Ann Ot­t­ley says the union will not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ac­cept the 10 per cent wage set­tle­ment be­ing used as a bench­mark in sec­tions of the pub­lic sec­tor, in­sist­ing that each ne­go­ti­a­tion must be guid­ed by the cir­cum­stances of the com­pa­ny and, ul­ti­mate­ly, the man­date of work­ers.

Ot­t­ley, who is prepar­ing to take the helm of the union fol­low­ing its re­cent elec­tions, said BIG­WU’s pri­or­i­ty will be se­cur­ing the best pos­si­ble set­tle­ment for its mem­bers in the short­est pos­si­ble time, par­tic­u­lar­ly as pro­longed ne­go­ti­a­tions re­duce the re­al val­ue of back pay.

“We un­der­stand and we note the 10 per cent and that is­sue that re­al­ly af­fects a lot of the work­ers. But we have to re­al­ly fo­cus on what we can do for our mem­bers and what will be the best out­put and ben­e­fit for them,” Ot­t­ley said.