Banking strike on Friday threatens to shut down ATMs and Internet banking

[Totempole]

You do realise that it is in a company's interest to keep good workers and that the way to keep such people is to pay them more?

Bad employees are a dime a dozen but good employees are sought after. That is why it can cost an employer as much as six month's salary to replace a good competent employee. Cheaper to keep them happy and entice them to stay.

You make a valid point in general, but the banking sector just doesn't work that way. As a bank employee you're just another ant in the colony. If everyone isn't pulling their weight it's retrenchment time again. No one is indispensable anymore.

 

[PAYBACK]

Ironic. South Africa with one of the most advanced banking systems in the world brought about the “challenges” it faces is victim to its own progress.

Edit: What will create more banking jobs. A better educated population or less criminals trying to steal your money?

 

[VooDooC]

Working for a bank and I can sure as heck tell you no one here will be interrupting any online banking features. If someone is stupid enough to do that they will be out on their arse and looking at a lengthy prison sentence.

 

[Mila]

Working for a bank and I can sure as heck tell you no one here will be interrupting any online banking features. If someone is stupid enough to do that they will be out on their arse and looking at a lengthy prison sentence.

Thank you. The lady working for me asked me if the card machines in side shops will work.
I said I think so but rather stay away from ATMs as Tsotsis might try to cause nonsense at those.

 

[RaptorSA]

Working for a bank and I can sure as heck tell you no one here will be interrupting any online banking features. If someone is stupid enough to do that they will be out on their arse and looking at a lengthy prison sentence.

I worked for FNB and I'd also like to shake the hand of the man who has the know-how and the balls to take their online banking system down.
He'd better pack a lot of lunch for work, he's going to have a long day.

 

[ToxicBunny]

I worked for FNB and I'd also like to shake the hand of the man who has the know-how and the balls to take their online banking system down.
He'd better pack a lot of lunch for work, he's going to have a long day.

SASBO clearly have the volume of lunch required, since they've said they'll do it...

Granted I doubt the management of SASBO know what a server looks like, let alone a Data Center or distributed systems or anything vaguely IT related.

 

[rwenzori]

I worked for FNB and I'd also like to shake the hand of the man who has the know-how and the balls to take their online banking system down.
He'd better pack a lot of lunch for work, he's going to have a long day.

Extremely unlikely at a bank, but does anyone remember one Berend Howard who brought Edcon down one sunny Saturday?

 

[Emjay]

Reading about this strike just makes it clear that the Unions are really clueless on how banks actually work.

Also, I have a family member who works as mid management at Standard Bank. Standard Bank went to extreme lengths to find alternative work for the people impacted by the branch closures. Almost all of the people who lost their jobs were placed elsewhere. In some instances, even with vendors. You will not read about that anywhere, because it won't generate outrage.

 

[noxibox]

Unions won't be able to prevent banking apps replacing branches. If the big four stick with the old ways, new challengers such as TymeBank or its successors will replace them. Just like stable boys and horse sellers fell away when the motor car became prevalent.

Of course unions can't prevent that. They do try, and it is to be expected they would. People will always try to avoid losing their jobs. But it isn't the real reason that unions exist and should exist.

Unions are basically the same thing as consumer protection organisations, class action lawsuits and so on.

That is why the individual must take responsibility for their own long-term prospects.

That's exactly what the owners of capital would prefer, each person alone.

 

[noxibox]

If you are a hard worker you will soon be recognised by management as such and will get a better salary and faster promotion.

That's a nice fantasy world you live in.

However, if you are stupid enough to join a union, management will be forced to give you the same salary as the morons around you and will find it difficult to promote you.

That's not really how the pay works. This is a common false claim about unions and union negotiated pay.

 

[noxibox]

No, I disagree strongly with your strategy, the individual doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell. Its like a goose farting into a hurricane.Their best chance is with the power of collective bargaining.

Humans need competition and cooperation. It's been a major propaganda coup to get people to forget the latter part.

 

[Cius]

I have worked at ABSA, Standard bank, and Nedbank and the odd thing is some are much harder around retrenchments than others. Standard bank I found brutal. They deliberately on occasion over staffed to be ready for big projects and then cut back harshly later to cut costs. ABSA too. Nedbank on the other hand bends over backwards to avoid retrenchment, and often does re-deploy or re-skill affected people. If the Union targets all the banks equally (including Capitec who to my knowledge have never retrenched) it would be idiotic as it would push management to say why go through all the effort of being nice? If Unions are going to paint us all the same might as well save the time and energy and go the harsh retrenchment route.

Anyways, this is a union so the expectation bar is not exactly high. They have done more to destroy employment in this country than anyone else.

 

[LazyLion]

Standard Bank: We are aware of the planned protest action this Friday 27 Sept 2019. We have effective business continuity plans in place to mitigate any impact and maintain best possible service levels should the protest go ahead. You will be kept informed should there be any disruption to our banking services. You will continue to have access to our digital channels, including our Banking App, Internet Banking, USSD and ATMs.

Source: Standard Bank Facebook Page

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

I have worked at ABSA, Standard bank, and Nedbank

OUCH!

my condolences!

 

[surface]

OUCH!

my condolences!

Banks offer ton of money to "certain" contractors to ease the pain, especially in IT contracting.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Banks offer ton of money to "certain" contractors to ease the pain, especially in IT contracting.

no ofc I'm aware that there's good money in it, I just also know the pain is substantial

 

[Cius]

no ofc I'm aware that there's good money in it, I just also know the pain is substantial

I dunno, depends very much where in the bank you end up and under which management. I've had some bad spots but mostly have been looked after fairly well.

Areas I would be loath to go to (or back to):
Operations. The never ending sequence of late night phone calls because system XYZ is down is awful. Did it a bit, glad to be out of that space for the most part.
Group Technology departments: Way too much politics, and pathetic bonus's for all the trouble. Better to sit as an IT professional in the business unit you serve doing project based work with reasonable deadlines.
Management: Was a line manager for a bit, the higher you get the more insane the politics gets and the more soul destroying meetings you have to sit in. Glad to be a highly qualified expert doing my job, and working for really decent managers who look after their guys and give them opportunities to grow. Also they listen to my input and value it.
Time: Have worked for managers that thought a 12 hour day was normal, that sucked. I like having flexi time and try keep overtime to 5 to 10% of the year at most and that mostly when a big project is close to delivery.

 

[noxibox]

You do realise that it is in a company's interest to keep good workers and that the way to keep such people is to pay them more?

Bad employees are a dime a dozen but good employees are sought after. That is why it can cost an employer as much as six month's salary to replace a good competent employee. Cheaper to keep them happy and entice them to stay.

That's the theory. In practice things tend to be very different. The problem is that companies both want to pay as little as they can get away with and they want to retain quality employees. Mostly. You do still get lunatic managers who think someone like an engineer is an interchangeable part like a bolt, so if you lose a bunch of them you can just buy some more identical ones and slot them in. Regardless because companies play this balancing act of trying to pay as little as possible, but not too little they're always at risk of losing good employees. And if good employees feel undervalued they'll either stay, but be less productive, or they'll leave. In some cases they'll accept a pay increase offered to get them to stay, but they'll still be less productive because the company was undervaluing them before.

So true.

Actually completely false, and demonstrates poor knowledge of how unionised pay scales really work.

I have worked at ABSA, Standard bank, and Nedbank and the odd thing is some are much harder around retrenchments than others. Standard bank I found brutal. They deliberately on occasion over staffed to be ready for big projects and then cut back harshly later to cut costs. ABSA too. Nedbank on the other hand bends over backwards to avoid retrenchment, and often does re-deploy or re-skill affected people. If the Union targets all the banks equally (including Capitec who to my knowledge have never retrenched) it would be idiotic as it would push management to say why go through all the effort of being nice? If Unions are going to paint us all the same might as well save the time and energy and go the harsh retrenchment route.

Anyways, this is a union so the expectation bar is not exactly high. They have done more to destroy employment in this country than anyone else.

Those companies that value their employees are probably reaping rewards and are likely to have superior productivity. It's also possible that the people in charge aren't psychopaths and thus won't behave in the manner of Standard Bank and ABSA simply because of a union.

 

[santaman202]

Can't access move money from my capitec app, it says my service provider is currently unavailable. Anyone else having this problem ?

 

[Quey_Quick]

Nedbank IT guy here, we essentially laughed off this strike.

And to answer the guy whose nephew works for a bank, quite a lot of our QA and DR systems are already lifted and shifted into Azure/AWS, as well as off site data centers.