MEMBERSHIP PLEBISCITE ADVICE
CWU members should by now have received a ballot paper for an internal union membership vote (plebiscite).The issue you are being asked to vote on concerns the rules of your union, the CWU, which is the Communications Division of the larger CEPU.The other two divisions of our larger union are the Electrical and Plumbing Divisions.
Under our current Communications Division rules, the CWU can only merge with another section of the larger CEPU if a majority of all CWU members agree to do so. If they did agree, the whole division would then merge.
Under the proposed rule change, individual CWU branches could decide to merge with another section of the CWU if their Branch Committee of Management agrees to do so.
The arguments for and against this proposed change should have come with your ballot paper. Please read and consider them carefully.
This question might seem rather technical, but the ballot result will have a major impact on the way your union operates and on how effective it is in representing you.
If you have not received a ballot paper or if you have damaged your paper you should contact the returning officer for the ballot – Bernard Stabb, he can be reached on 0417 588 121.
OPTUS AWARD UPDATE
The CWU and Optus attended a conference before the Fair Work Commission on 7 May to deal with a number of issues relating to the modernisation of the Optus award.
The Commission decided last year that Optus should retain an enterprise award rather than be covered by the general industry award, the Telecommunications Services Award 2010.
But not all details of the new award were finalised at that time.
The conference of 7 May dealt largely with some technical issues relating to the minimum wage rates in the new award and with a number of variations to the current award proposed by the CWU.
It was agreed that the CWU and Optus would attempt to resolve these matters between them rather than taking them to a Full Bench of the Commission. We expect to meet with Optus on these questions during the coming week.
NBN PAY OFFER NOT GOOD ENOUGH, SAYS CWU
The CWU has told NBN Co (now known simply as nbn) that it cannot recommend its proposed Enterprise Agreement while the pay offer it contains remains so low.
The company is proposing a three year agreement with annual pay rises of 2.5%, 1% and 1% between 2015 and 2018 – an offer that would almost certainly deliver a real wage cut (i.e. a total rise below inflation) over that time.
The CWU met with nbn on Monday 4 May to discuss the proposed agreement for technical staff which was provided to the union on 29 April.
The agreement would essentially preserve current conditions except where, according to nbn, changes are necessary to comply with current federal government policy.
Predictably, those changes are largely designed to give more flexibility to the employer and to limit the activities of workplace delegates and the union generally in the company.
In fact both the proposed pay rise and the changes to the content of the current agreement simply reflect the current policies of the Abbott government, rather than the genuine interests of either nbn or its employees. The CWU considers that given this situation, the bargaining that has gone on so far between nbn and its unions can’t be said to have been conducted in good faith.
The CWU intends to meet with the other unions involved in this round of nbn bargaining to consider its next steps. For its part, nbn has indicated that it intends to put the agreement to employees in mid-May with a view to holding a vote on it by the end of the month.
NBN CO REBADGES – TO nbn
NBN Co has decided it needs a new look. The company has changed its name to nbn and adopted a new logo. It has reportedly spent over $700,000 in the process – and that’s before changes to stationary, vehicle badging and so on.
That’s all money that could have been spent on pay rises for CWU members and other employees!
The company has also adopted the motto “nbn: bring it on” – very apt, given the history of delays that has marked the project to date.
NBN Co – or rather nbn – says the change is designed to be “bold and inspiring”.
“The new brand positioning is modern, inspiring and aspirational – it shows how the nbn network will help harness the full potential of everyone in Australia,” an nbn spokesperson is quoted by the Melbourne Age as saying.
“It’s intended to create a sense of optimism and inspiration.”
It will need to. Today, just over 6 years since the NBN was launched, there are still only 394,000 active customers using the network.
And research released by the company to coincide with the rebranding revealed that while most Australian supported the aim of the project, a third did not understand that they would need to switch to the NBN to maintain a fixed line service.
Problems also persist in those areas where cutovers have occurred, such as delays in connection times and unavailability of substitutes for those services (e.g. medical alarms, ATMs) that cannot readily be migrated to the new platform.
nbn is reportedly making headway in these areas. But it will take more than a new logo to drive the changes needed –especially in the area of skills supply and workforce conditions – to get the project on track.
BIDDING WAR FOR IINET HEATS UP
The bidding war between TPG and M2 for retail service provider iiNet has taken another turn, with TPG upping its original offer for the current no.3 telecoms service provider by another 11%.
TPG made the first move in the consolidation play in late March with a $1.4 billion bid, amounting to $8.60 a share.
That would have meant a healthy profit for any long-term shareholders. iiNet shares were as low as 20c in the early 2000s after the dot.com boom had taken its toll on the industry.
But it was not considered good enough by iiNet founder and former CEO Michael Malone, despite the iiNet board’s initial acceptance of the offer.
Malone led a shareholder rebellion which opened up the space for a rival bid. Enter M2, which made a $1.6 billion offer late last month.
The iiNet board has now accepted TPG’s revised offer, though some analysts believe there is still a possibility that M2 could make a further bid.
Either way, the door is open to a further concentration of the service provider market as companies seek scale in order to survive the challenges of the superfast broadband market –not least of which is the structure of nbn wholesale charges which favour larger operators.
TEMPORARY VISAS – A FRONT FOR “SLAVE LABOUR”?
A recent ABC programme has confirmed what unions have known for some time – temporary work visas are being used by many Australian businesses to engage workers on what are virtually slave labour conditions.
The Four Corners programme focused on migrant workers on working holiday (417) visas. It found that exploitation of these workers, together with bullying and sexual harassment, was common.
Such workers typically work on farms or in factories in the food industry, often for companies supplying produce to the big supermarket chains.
At a chicken processing factory, the ABC programme found migrants who were being forced to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week.
Some “holiday”!!
The report also aired allegations of unscrupulous contractors propagating black market labour, hiring migrants on expired or invalid visas. Some are paying workers half the legal wage, or as little as $3.95 an hour.
Unions say that urgent action must be taken by the Federal Government to clamp down on and regulate the entire temporary visa and labour hire system and remove rogue operators.
ACTU President Ged Kearny said that the Senate Inquiry that has been set up to examine the temporary migration system and particularly 457 visas should also examine the abuse of 417 visa workers.
“It is unbelievable that the Abbott Government is seeking to expand and further deregulate the temporary visa system despite allegations of exploitation having been aired for some time,” she said.
But then again maybe not so unbelievable from a government which has yet more attacks on working people and their organisations planned.
VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT TO SET UP INQUIRY INTO LABOUR EXPLOITATION
In the wake of the recent revelations about experiences of 417 visa (“working holiday”) workers, the Victorian Labor government has announced it will set up an inquiry into labour exploitation.
Victoria’s Minister for Industrial Relations Natalie Hutchins said the inquiry would seek to crack down on unscrupulous labour hire practices.
“We’re just in the process of putting some terms of reference together and putting a committee together to actually do the investigation,” she said.
“We’re hoping to get some pretty quick outcomes around how we can actually regulate probably some of the worst labour hire practices that we’ve seen in a long time.
“We need to get the message out loud and clear that every unethical labour contractor that’s operating needs to know that these activities won’t be tolerated in Victoria.”
Calls for tighter regulation have also come from other states as well as from peak grower and farmer bodies. To date, however, there has been no indication that the federal government is interested in cracking down on these exploitative practices.