The Industrial Court has made its award on the Dispute between SBEU & SCBA over the Collective Agreement for year 2000-2002.

ARTICLE 14.

In an award dated 20 September 2002, the day before SBEU held its 14th TDC, Industrial Court President Yusof Ahmad handed down the keenly waited decision and hold that Article 14 on the employment of Contract, temporary employees as well as on outsourcing shall not be removed.

EFFECTIVE DATE

He also ruled that the effective date of the Award shall be from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2002. He threw out SCBA's contention that the Award be effective only from 1 September 2000 holding that it would be contrary to equity and good conscience to allow the banks to go back on their words.

Members would recall that SCBA agreed in written that prior to commencement of negotiations in 2002 that effective date should be from 1 January 2000. The negotiations broke down and the dispute referred to court, SCBA then refused to honour the agreement.

This means that members will get arrears backdated to 1 January 2000. The Court also award that those employees who resigned from the Banks since 1 January 2000 shall also be entitled to all benefits of the award, including arrears of salary

SALARY
- The Court award salary increases of

NON CLERICAL - 12%
CLERICAL 12%
SPECIAL GRADE 11.5%

- The Court also introduced a new Range System with an increased of 11% over the previous salary structure.

- With the new system, banks can grant more than the minimum annual increment. This will encourage productivity.

INCREASED IN SALARY STRUCTURE (Range)
Cat.		OLD	NEW	%INC.	Amt I
N CI	Min Max	$ 565 $1,282	$ 630.00 $ 1,417.00	11% 11%	$ $ 1
CI	Min Max	$852 $2,146	$948.00 $2,381.00	11% 11%	$ $ 2
S G	Min	$1,074	$ 1,194.00	11%	$ 1

ARREARS
Arrears on Salary, Swak Allowance & Bonus will be paid by 30 November 2002. Arrears on Overtime and other allowances to be paid by 31 January 2003.

Arrears on allowances, delivery charges, Family Medical will be effective 28 March 2001

MEDICAL
4 The court also award free medical check-up and examination to employees who are above 45 years old once in three years
4 Family Medical increases to RM1000

DELIVERY CHARGES
After the award, SCBA graciously agreed to include
" Delivery charges of RM500 per pregnancies up to 2 pregnancies
" Inconvenience allowances
" Housing Loan increase to RM120,000.

ALLOWANCES
The Court also awards increases in Shift allowance ($10-$20), subsistence allowance ($2, $5 & $10), Laundry allowance ($5) and mileage allowance (5sen per km.).

NON "TRADE DISPUTE" ARTICLES
The court also did not make any award pertaining to articles that it deemed not be trade disputes- such as, IRCs & Leave on Trade Union Courses. The Court however rejects SCBA's attempts to remove change the Article on probation.

CLAIMS REJECTED
The Court also declined to accede to the SBEU's requests:

4 To introduce a new Senior Special Grade scale
4 To increase retirement age to 60
4 To introduce Code of Conduct for prevention of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace
4 For Male employees should be entitled to childcare allowance
4 For Interest Free Computer Loan of RM5000 .

CONCESSION
SBEU made the following concessions
" Sick Leave entitlement reduced from 30 to 25 days
" Emergency leave to be calendar days instead of working days
" Age limit for children under the family medical benefit to remain at 18 instead of 21 yr.

A FAIR AND REASONABLE AWARD
SBEU welcome the Award, as we believe that overall it is a fair and reasonable award. We are thankful that the Court recognised the Unions concerns on outsourcing and the employment of temporary, contract and part time employees.

We also note that this is one of those very rare occasion that the Court award salary increases that are above the 2/3 of the CPI (Consumer Price Index). The Court is also impressed with our argument that Salary revision cannot be based purely on CPI.

SBEU had requested for a salary increase of 18, 16 14% respectively of Non Clerical, Clerical & Special Grade. This was on the assumption that we might lose out if the effective date were extended to 1st September 2000. Since the Court held that the effective date is 1 January 2000-meaning that we would not lose out on the arrears and subsequent salary revision, SBEU is indeed happy that our expectations on salary increase are completed met

SCBA had submitted that the Court should not even grant any salary revision arguing that we already enjoyed the Sarawak allowance. The court threw out this argument.

The Court did remove the sub-clauses on employment of school leavers and part-time employees. SBEU views that this is favourable because without such an article, banks cannot employed any employees within the scope of the award without paying them the full terms and conditions of the award. This would mean that part- time employees must be paid full salary

With the settlement of this ward, Bank employees now must further enhance their productivity and efficiency so that we can provide the highest level of customer service.

FINANCE COMPANIES
Employees of all Banks including Public Finance, Mayban Finance, BCB Finance are covered by the award. SBEU is now making presentation to RHB Delta Finance, Affin ACF Finance, EON Finance, AMFinance & Southern Finance & Hong Leong Finance to also follow the award.

SBEU GENERAL SECRETARY Andrew Lo represented SBEU while R Sivanagnam & Associates represented the Banks in the case.