Staff at Westpac Bank call centres in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch walked off the job today in protest over work conditions.
Finsec organiser Karen Skinner said about 100 staff, who did shift work, voted last week to reject the bank's collective agreement offer. She said it failed to deliver equality withother bank workers and a balance between work and life.
Ms Skinner said call centre staff were expected to work 30 minutes more a day than colleagues in other areas of the bank and constantly changing shift work rosters made outside activities difficult.
"We believe it therefore makes good business sense to address call centre staff work-life concerns," she said in a statement.
"These workers are on a continually changing roster system, for which they only get four weeks' notice.
"Recent EEO (Employment Opportunities Trust) research showed that broken shift rosters could negatively affect both relationships and quality of work."
Ms Skinner said it was difficult for staff to do out-of-work activities such as evening classes because of the irregularity.
In Auckland strikers will gather at the Price Waterhouse Cooper building this morning to deliver a message to Westpac CEO Ann Sherry.
In Wellington and Christchurch they will picket throughout the morning.
Westpac last year won an EEO Trust award for its work-life balance policy.
Westpac media relations manager Paul Gregory said the company was willing to listen to staff concerns but they had decided to strike before negotiations had had a chance.
"The things they raised we are prepared to listen to," he told NZPA saying the company did its best to be a good employer.
He said about 118 out of 247 call centre staff were in the union.
Steps were being taken to minimise disruption to customers today including getting others trained to staff the phones.
