The United Services Union says Newcastle Permanent customers angry over the closure of four Hunter branches should target the building society's leaders rather than front-line staff.
The union, which represents hundreds of staff at the Permanent, issued a media statement on Thursday urging customers to take aim at directors and executives to overturn the decision.
The Newcastle Herald reported last weekend that the Permanent planned to close its Nelson Bay, Maitland, Cardiff and Mayfield branches in March as its customers increasingly banked online.
The society closed its Lambton, John Hunter Hospital and Newcastle University branches two years ago.
USU private sector manager Peter Campise said the staff affected by the changes were bearing the brunt of customer dissatisfaction.
"Our members have been overwhelmed by community concerns about these closures, particularly from less mobile customers who will no longer have access to quality local financial services," he said.
"Branch staff, who were blindsided by the announcement of the closures, have been left to handle the complaints of customers, despite having no involvement in the decision to axe these services."
Most of the Permanent's competitors, including the ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac, have shut hundreds of branches across Australia in the past decade.
Mr Campsie said Newcastle Permanent customers had the power to stop the latest closures because they owned the building society.
"Newcastle Permanent puts at risk their reputation for caring for the local community with this decision to put economic interests and short-term profitability ahead of service quality for their customers," he said.
"While Newcastle Permanent has said there will be no job losses as a result of these branch closures, there have been a number of redundancies during the past 12 months."
A Newcastle Permanent spokesperson reiterated that affected staff would move to other branches, the offices to be closed were near other branches, and branch transactions accounted for fewer than 10 per cent of customer transactions.
"We understand that some customers will be disappointed with these closures. However, as a customer-owned institution we must ensure the business is run as efficiently and effectively as possible," the spokesperson said.
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