Communication Workers Union

Telstra will be proceeding to a ballot of all eligible employees (those employed on the EBA, on expired AWAs, and those employed on ITEAs which have all expired) in early September. The employer has a right, in law, to conduct such a ballot to test their employees’ view relating to a draft EBA. The CEPU has facilitated this ballot taking place by accepting Telstra's view that the union would not conduct a "vote no" campaign against the draft EBA.

On the basis of the CEPU's commitment not to conduct a “vote no” campaign, Telstra has accepted that:

• the draft EBA is now basically acceptable to the CEPU (except for the pay offer). That is, there were outstanding issues in the draft that have now progressed to an in-principle draft agreement.

• if the draft EBA is acceptable to the majority of employees in the ballot, then the first pay rise will be backdated to July 1st, 2010.

• the CEPU will not be conducting a “vote yes” campaign either; it will simply provide members with a factual report about what is in it and what is not

• if there is a positive outcome in the ballot, telstra commit to further discussions on the differential between EA and ECA pay rates with the CEPU

We are all disappointed that at this stage we haven’t been able to finally close that pay increase gap. However, the facts are that:

• In the CEPU membership ballot, members in three states (including states which are among the largest membership bases), voted “yes” to the agreement.

• Telstra were refusing to proceed to ballot without an undertaking from the CEPU that it would not campaign against the agreement.

• If they didn’t proceed to ballot, there would be no agreement in place, Telstra would wait until the October 2010 pay review and pay EBA employees whatever the AWA employees are given (last year that was less than 2%) and that could mean that the 2% from July 1^st would be lost, thus making the pay gap with the ECAs even worse.

• We would be in a situation of no agreement and with a little less than half of our members wanting to settle.

• What is more, we would still not have secured the extra benefits and rights that are contained in the draft EBA and we would not have fixed the pay gap issue (or it would be worse, as indicated above).

We can’t ignore those facts.

Given the circumstances above a decision needed to be taken one way or another. That is to let Telstra go to a ballot and let the employees decide if they want to pick up the agreement at this stage or to fight on. To fight on we would need the full support of the membership throughout Australia. Members throughout Australia can still vote “no” in the ballot but if they do so they must be prepared to take widespread national industrial action as they were doing earlier in the campaign.

If they choose that latter option and are really committed to it, the CEPU will support that and organise it. Either way we are still committed to close that pay gap sometime, regardless of the result of the ballot and we will continue to campaign to resolve the pay disparity.

We must not forget the background and history of this long and difficult dispute. (See attachment A)

Despite everything much has been achieved by CEPU members so far.

All current conditions continue. That is not what Telstra wants; they would love to move to Optus-type conditions.

The redundancy agreement is protected and in fact improved. This was not guaranteed under the Fair Work Act.

We have arbitration for any disputes with Telstra; something they have resisted for over 15 years.

We have modified Telstra’s Part A/Part B model to ensure that new starters in the CFW and TW work streams are employed on the EBA banding and pay system, and that those coming off their AWAs in these work streams have the choice to go onto the EBA banding and pay system.

For the first time we have some control over Telstra's performance management (PICM) system.

We have salary packaging; something they have resisted for award staff for over 10 years.

We have prevented them spreading the ECAs right across the business; the ECAs that exist are for a relatively small part of the business. Their ECA strategy was in effect defeated.

They were forced to negotiate with the union and to deliver a union agreement. At one stage they were flatly refusing this.

We have increased the recall/standby allowances. Again something Telstra has resisted for a decade.

What is more, right at the start the pay offer was not going to deliver 4%+4% for 2010 and 2011, but at least they will pay that now. (They paid 2% voluntarily in October 2009 [plus a 2.5% lump sum “sign on” allowance] without an agreement.)

Now a ballot of all eligible employees, (members and non members), will take place shortly.

If you vote no, it must be based on your commitment to fight on to win a better deal.

LEN COOPER

Branch Secretary

Attachment A (SLD 10/189)

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF EBA IN TELSTRA 2008.

• In order to continue its de-unionisation project Telstra attempted to roll out a non-union, non-negotiated ECA to all of its call centre workers in the last quarter of 2007, in the run-up to the Federal Election of that year.

• The unions in Telstra conducted a "vote no" campaign against the ECA, and despite the fact that the call centres had very low unionisation, 78% of employees voted against the non-union contract. This was a blow to Telstra's plans to further de-unionise the industry.

• In this period the union was hearing "rumours" that Telstra were going to refuse to negotiate a new EBA with the CEPU. The current EBA was due to expire in September 2008. On the basis of these "rumours", the CEPU wrote to Telstra to question their intentions. Telstra wrote back a "mealy mouthed" response basically stating that they hadn't made up their mind about negotiations.

• After a huge "Your Rights At Work - Worth Fighting For" campaign by the entire Australian union movement, including the CEPU, the Howard government was defeated in November of 2007.

• Despite the election decision by the Australian people Telstra management rushed to put thousands of employees on to 5 year "WorkChoices" AWAs from November 2007 in order to avoid the new government’s looming decision to ban new AWAs. Through deception, bullying and alarmist nonsense Telstra was largely successful in this effort.

• Telstra finally accepted that there was a requirement in the current EBA that talks regarding a new EBA would begin about May of 2008, 4 months before the technical expiry date of the EBA in September 2008.The talks began initially in May 2008.

• Telstra walked out of the talks in June/July 2008, basically because the CEPU would not accept the Telstra agenda to have a "two tier" Part A/Part B model type EBA. Such a model would have ensured different conditions of employment between the “new” and “old” employees and a phasing out of the EBA model which requires negotiation and agreement on wages and conditions.

• Telstra management tried to claim that they walked out over the unions’ insistence on a so-called "illegal side agreement". This was a concocted excuse to allow Telstra to implement its position of not wanting to negotiate a new EBA, (except on its terms), and to continue with its decade or more long project of de-unionising the company.

• This conspiracy by Telstra was eventually proven by the public exposure of a secret internal blue print by Telstra which planned the walk out and planned the rollout of non union ECAs across the entire EBA workforce over a 12 month period or so.

• True to their own conspiratorial blue print, Telstra proceeded to refuse to negotiate for a period of 12 months, and used the 12 months to try to rollout their Part A/Part B non-union, non-negotiated contracts (ECAs), to the entire EBA workforce. The attempt to rollout the non-union contracts took place between about July 2008 and March 2009.

• They failed miserably in this latest bit of nasty, and with the odd exception the highly unionised areas of Telstra rejected Telstra’s de-unionisation project. Despite Telstra management offering 12.5% pay increase over 3 years with back pay to October 2008, EBA employees largely decided to remain union.

• Due to the law, we were unable to initiate any legal industrial action until our current EBA reached its expiry date (5th Sept.2008). The union began the process as early as it could, given all the potential difficulties in the law, however a ballot of CEPU members to decide on strike and other industrial action was held in late November/early December 2008.

• CEPU members voted by over 90% to take strike and other industrial action. The industrial action began on the 13^th December 2008, and with the exception of small breaks, the industrial action lasted until June 2009.

• Telstra agreed to "bargain in good faith" in June 2009.

• Five months of negotiations took place covering all of the issues placed on the table by the unions and Telstra. Some of the issues were very complex given the history of the previous decade and the difficult issues produced by the various legal regimes.

• The talks had virtually ground to a halt after 5 months, with the two major outstanding issues of arbitration rights and pay increases unresolved. At this stage they were only offering to pay increases of 2%+3%+4% over 3 years plus a 2.5% so called "sign on bonus" supposedly as a "recognition" that EBA employees had not received a pay increase for the previous 12 months.

• Just prior to the industrial action commencing again over these issues, Telstra indicated it would be prepared to move on the issue of arbitration and to increase the second payment from 3% to 4%.

• The union tested this "offer" with members throughout Australia via face-to-face meetings, telephone conferences, surveys etc and it was clear that a pay rise which discriminated against EBA employees because they were unionised, vis-a-vis those on non-union ECAs was not acceptable.

• The industrial action was re-imposed in December 2009, and continued until recently. During this time negotiations on other aspects of the EBA continued to put together the draft document that Telstra will now put to the ballot. Albeit without the pay disparity resolved.