Communication Workers Union

THE EBA IN TELSTRA: WHERE TO FROM HERE?

What is the current situation?
The majority of our members in the recent consultative study, voted to continue the campaign against Telstra's wage discrimination. The national vote was a no vote for the current Telstra "offer", by 54.5%. We have notified Telstra of the rejection of their "offer'.

We have again put a proposal for Telstra to pay the extra 2.5% over a two year period (2.5%+2.5%+2.5%+3%) starting from July 1st. If agreed this would mean the 12.5% equivalent to the increases paid to ECA employees, (2% was paid without agreement in October 2009, plus a 2.5% lump sum which doesn't count as salary.

We are also requiring Telstra to complete a draft of the EBA "offer" which accurately reflects the agreements during the "good faith bargaining" process. So far Telstra has not been able to do this and in fact it has introduced clauses that are not acceptable to us and which were not agreed by us in the negotiations.

We have no choice but to reject an offer which discriminates against employees on the union EBA. How could a union endorse a deal which pays employees on a negotiated agreement less than employees on a non-union collective agreement who do the same work? Especially when there is no plan to remove the blatant discrimination in the future and therefore it could last for years and years, maybe even decades. How is such an impossible "offer" consistent with good faith bargaining?

The union at national level (all states), has been considering the situation and discussing the various options available. In the meantime our campaign continues. OT and Recall bans continue, including the start of day bans and end of day bans. These have a major detrimental impact on Telstra's productivity and its works programme in various parts of the business. Our Argent members have been taking further strike action ongoing, and this is creating significant disruption to the EFTPOS system with dissatisfaction from the banks and their commercial customers growing in intensity. The industrial action has been restrained whilst we went through further meetings with Telstra and the consultative survey ballot with our members. Our members in Network Construction are considering further action.

Not only has Telstra no intention of closing the pay gap between EBA employees and ECA employees and thus ending the blatant discrimination against EBA employees, they declare they have no plans to end the discrimination anytime into the future.

Telstra of course has the capacity to go to a formal ballot of all eligible employees on the EBA. The law allows the employer in this situation to go to a ballot without agreement from the union. If the majority of eligible employee voters supported the deal in such a ballot, it would be registered as the new Telstra EBA. It is an option open to Telstra. We are unaware of their intentions in this regard. If Telstra believe that their offer is as good as they have been claiming, they have the capacity to go to a ballot on the draft EBA at anytime.

What must the union do?
What form will the next phase of our campaign take?

The campaign could include:

• further lobbying/approaches to all unions, politicians, Party branches, community organisations
• linking in with appropriate national and international web sites
• paid advertising and publicity in all media types
• mass publicity for our campaign web site Telstragreed.com.au to involve the general public and members
• involve the national and state unions throughout Australia, over time.
• step up the various forms of effective industrial action
• to continue the strike action to short stoppages so that members can support the protest actions and to national protest action occasionally, at key times. This could also include targeted action in key areas, where members agree.

Some of the above activities could obviously be aimed at utilising the opportunities presented in a run up to the Federal election.

It is also important to involve all Telstra employees in the campaign, whatever limits are placed on their capacity to be involved, by the law, etc. People employed on AWAs, ECAs and ITEAs will all benefit from a good EBA in the long run.

We are writing to all Labor, Green and Independent politicians at state and federal level, calling on them to:

*         Send a copy of our post card to the Telstra CEO, Mr David Thodey.

*         Send a letter of support for Telstra workers to the CEPU.

*         Consider making a donation to the union's welfare fund which is being used to sustain striking Telstra workers.

*         Communicate directly with the CEO David Thodey about the pay discrimination.

*         Consider the use of government processes (e.g. procurement/contracts) to pressure Telstra to stop the pay discrimination to end the dispute.

We are preparing further publicity to expose Telstra management's lies about improving customer service, its discrimination against and mistreatment of its employees, Telstra's hypocritical double standards, its ongoing redundancies and more.

We have a website called Telstragreed.com.au which is our campaign website for use by Telstra employees, the general public and other supporters.

We have a post card for members, and the general public to send to the Telstra CEO.

We have a leaflet for distribution to the public called "Read Before You Buy".

TELSTRA'S FURTHER 900 REDUNDANCIES

Now of course Telstra's management vandals are making another 900 Telstra workers redundant in a situation where already the workers are struggling to keep up with the workload and provide proper service to customers. Not only is this bad for customers, it is disastrous for employees who stay and are expected to pick up the work with absolutely no concern by management about their employee stress levels and anxiety, etc. It is also disastrous for employees who are forced on to the job market to try and keep their families going. This will no doubt make Telstra employees even angrier, as it should.

In addition we now know that the NBN rollout has been agreed between the Federal Government, Telstra and NBN Co. Given the likely requirements of the new NBN future, it makes the latest round of redundancies an even greater act of vandalism by Telstra management. The national broadband network will no doubt require the skilled and trained labour before long. Why isn't this being built into the overall planning? Because it's all about Telstra's self interest - its bottom line. Once again it's Telstra's workers and customers who suffer.

WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION GIVEN THE SITUATION ?

The answer is obvious isn't it?

Telstra should satisfactorily finalise the EBA and pay the EBA employees equal pay for equal work.

Telstra and the union should agree to co-operate on Telstra's KPIs such as productivity, customer service standards, customer/company relations and employee/management relations, by involving the entire workforce in the process. We should agree to work together to bring about the best outcome possible with regard to the NBN.

In the difficult times ahead with NBN rollout and other challenges this would represent common sense in the interests of employee jobs, conditions and futures, and the company, given the massive ground to be made up on some of it's KPIs, not the least of those being the languishing share price.

How much good sense exists?

REDUNDANCY KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

There are a number of fundamentals in a redundancy situation in Telstra.

Under the union/Telstra redundancy agreement you are entitled to seek negotiations (via the union if you wish), within two weeks of the "Form A" being issued. The negotiations are able to examine Telstra's "reasons" for the redundancies, whether the jobs are actually redundant, whether management have done all they can to "mitigate" the impact of the redundancies etc.

This negotiation period is only available to employees on the EBA, and not to employees on the ECA, and it is only available to employees on AWAs and ITEAs if Telstra agrees. There is no formal appeal in the event of a depot/centre closure.

Under the redundancy agreement, you can appeal internally to Telstra against your selection for redundancy. The union will help you with this and handle the appeal for you if you wish. This is also available to employees on the ECA and only available to employees on AWAs and ITEAs if Telstra agrees.

Under the redundancy agreement disputes about the redundancies can be taken to the industrial relations commission (now called Fair Work Australia).The union will help you with this and represent you at FWA should you wish.

Access to FWA over the redundancy agreement issues is not available to employees on an ECA, and is only available to employees on AWAs and ITEAs if Telstra agrees.

Some and even many of the decisions taken by managers to cut staff are driven by "bean counting", with little or no consideration of the impact on customer service or the employees left to do the work. If necessary the union will help you escalate any such issues for negotiation/consideration up to the highest levels in Telstra if required, whether you are employed on an EBA, ECA, AWA or ITEA.

We are, and will continue to, go public to expose management’s actions which undermine customer service and worsen employee stress and working conditions.

The union/management redundancy agreement spells out your redundancy entitlements and your rights. You can get a copy of the agreement on the intranet or from the union office or on the website www.cepu.net.au or www.cepuconnects.org.au .

It is important to understand that the Form A notification of redundancies gives very little useful information to the union. It gives the union no information about the individuals affected, about the work area affected or about other redundancy related issues.

Therefore, unless you contact us we do not know who is going, who is being targeted and what “shonkys” are being pulled or attempted.

Make sure you contact us, if there are problems. The A forms are designed by Telstra to keep us ignorant of the facts.