ST George staff are bracing for job cuts after the Westpac- St George merger on December1.
Westpac has said it will keep the StGeorge brand and corporate presence in Kogarah but when pressed for details at the bank's extraordinary general meeting on November 13, St George chairman John Curtis said he could not clarify what that presence would be but said there would be some ``pain'' through job losses.
Ninety-four per cent of proxy votes from St George shareholders (holding 278 million shares) voted for the merger while 4.95 per cent (14.6 million shares) were against it.
Finance Sector Union national secretary Leon Carter said the union would hold Westpac accountable to the conditions put on the takeover by the Federal Treasurer: three-year guarantees on ATMs and branches, and talks with the union about employment conditions and jobs.
More than 1000 people attended the meeting in the Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre on November 13.
Most were mum-and-dad investors and retirees.
They outnumbered bank executives who watched proceedings from the back of the hall.
St George and BankSA staff, many in their uniforms, travelled from as far as Adelaide and the Northern Territory to speak against the merger.
The union had collected proxy votes for the meeting from mum-and-dad investors and bank staff while the banks did so from the big institutional investors.
Mr Curtis said: ``Yes, there will be job losses, but Westpac has given assurance that if possible this will be through natural attrition or redeployment.''
Feisty shareholders lined up to tell the board their feelings about the merger and pointed out that customers were negative about the move and that ``off-shoring'' jobs was causing mistakes, complaints and more work for staff in Australia.
Shareholder Jack Tilburn said it was not a merger but a takeover.
``We don't want to go over to the 1000-pound gorilla known as Westpac,'' he said. ``We will lose 5000 of our wonderful staff.''
St George branch staff member Suzanne Pearce said branch employees reported that most customers had been negative about the merger while Yvonne Songer said people who lose their jobs will be joining the job queues in the worst recession since the 1930s.
``The tragedy is it doesn't need to happen, as St George has just posted a record profit,'' she said.
A St George Kogarah staffer said the merger would lead to further jobs going overseas.
``Off-shoring has increased complaints,'' he said. ``It saps morale to see jobs sent overseas and [see that] the staff replacing you are inadequately trained.''
The employee added that St George staff have to devote extra time to fixing mistakes made by inadequately trained offshore staff.
Shareholder David Barclay said his biggest fear was that St George did not finish up like Ansett.
Mr Curtis produced the results of the proxy voting showing 94 per cent for and 4.95 per cent against, then went through the formality of letting the remaining shareholders cast their votes.
Commented one shareholder: ``It was a done deal.''