Toxic work in Australia’s banks

Warning: this article discusses content related to suicide that may be distressing for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

MEDIA RELEASE: Toxic work in Australia’s banks

Finance sector workers who attempted suicide have reported their desperation to escape banking workplaces made toxic by management abuse and bullying focused on the relentless pursuit of corporate profit.  Thinking there was no way out, four workers with no previous history of mental illness thought to end their life. Their mental health suffered further because managers ignored their pain, often threatening the employees with dismissal for reporting their grievances or for failing to meet unworkable performance measures.

Six workers said they had thought about suicide because of their toxic work. One admitted that once, while driving home from work their thoughts of self-harming almost overwhelmed them. Another reported the pain they endured from constant micro-management became unbearable.

This University of Divinity study of ten Australian bank employees brings to light a hidden spectre of suicide in Australia’s banks. All ten employees who reported their accounts of suicidal thoughts with the Finance Sector Union said they were treated unjustly and bullied at work, and six agreed the pressure for sales growth was a contributing factor to feeling suicidal. Workers reported being ‘stood over’ by management, ‘being forced to sell’, threatened ‘with being managed out of the business’, and being ‘shunned’ for not imposing tougher regimes on employees.

These workers’ concerns about the effects of toxic work were collected by their union during the 2018 Banking Royal Commission. However, the Commission gave priority to the impact of banking misconduct on bank customers rather than the banks’ employees. So, the union shared its data with the Religion and Social Policy Network (RASP) at University of Divinity to forge a unique partnership to analyse workers’ grievances.

Researcher John Bottomley said the RASP study challenges the dominant medicalised understanding of the causes of suicide by emphasising the structural, organisational and managerial factors contributing to suicidality. “We believe these insights were made possible by the union’s initiative in requesting members to shine a light on toxic work conditions. The pain and suffering revealed in these anonymous on-line submissions to their union shows these workers’ trust in their union when their employer shut them out and left them alone to face the dark shadow of suicide.”

Bottomley added the report also criticises government’s increasing dependence on the neoliberal ideology’s belief that workers’ suicidal behaviour was a mental illness. “When the Royal Commission found that banks’ ‘misconduct’ towards customers started at the top with their blind focus on sales growth, our study suggests governments also turn a ‘blind eye’ to banks’ governance failures, which ignored the toxic work conditions that cause failures in work health and safety.”

For enquiries about this research, please contact:
Rev John Bottomley, johnbottomley@netspace.net.au
M: 0407 443 239

_{‘Neoliberalism, toxic work and the shadow of death: hidden suicidality among Australia’s finance sector workers’
John G Flett, John K Bottomley, and Brendan Byrne
University of Divinity, Australia}

_{Link to the Journal of Industrial Relations abstract: Neoliberalism, toxic work and the shadow of death: hidden suicidality among Australia’s finance sector workers – John G Flett, John K Bottomley, Brendan Byrne, 2025}

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