ACTU accuses Telstra for dishonesty (Australia)
Telstra Chief Executive Sol Trujillo posted a $1.6 million pay rise, the telco has been forced to shield a Work Choices-style strategy to cut $50 million from workers. Telstra have plans to offer non-union enterprise agreements to staff in areas with low unionisation rates, including technicians and call centre workers. They are anticipating cost savings of up to $50 million by shifting more employees onto individual performance pay, introducing a productivity blitz for technicians, and reducing payroll tax liabilities. Unions have wretched the move, calling for the federal government to urgently introduce new industrial laws to stop employers using Work Choices to short-change workers.
Spokesman Martin Barr said the so-called secret documents appeared to be proposing the same model Telstra put on the table in talks with unions. That model aims to secure significant incentive-based productivity gains over time while offering guaranteed pay increases to our employees and preserving their terms and conditions, he said. Of course, we have contingencies for industrial action because we need to maintain essential telecommunications services to Australia. Let me make this very clear that any collective agreement would have nothing to do with AWAs (Australian workplace agreements) or Work Choices and our employees, would get to vote on it, he further added.
Telstra’s 32,000 member workforce would split into two groups, one on enterprise agreements and the other on flexible agreements. If employess who did not accept the offer would have their salaries frozen for 12 months. The ACTU secretary accused Telstra of acting dishonestly to try to force workers onto non-union agreements after talks broke down in May. The appropriate role for the federal government is to move as quickly as it can to put in place the new industrial legislation and to urge all parties, including Telstra, to live in the real world, to recognise the fact that circumstances have changed and to act in good faith. he said. The Workplace Ombudsman could intervene in the pay dispute if a complaint was lodged, Industrial Relations Minister Julia Gillard said Telstra needed to understand Work Choices was dead and the government wanted to see “cooperative industrial relations”, she said.
