OFF SHORING A MUCH VEXED QUESTION
The issue of offshoring of Telstra jobs has long been a vexed question for our members.
Obviously without political/public intervention the Telstra Management for example, will continue to sell out Australian jobs in the interests of the company’s bottom line.
To achieve our goals on this issue will take considerable time and effort on many fronts.
Our strategy in tackling this issue has been and does include the following main elements.
On The Ground Action
- A public petition to parliament.
- An open letter from the public to the Prime Minister.
- A petition from Field Techs to the CEO. See website: stopoffshoring.com.au
Political Action
- Exploring ways in which the taxation system and government assistance programmes may be used to discourage off-shoring.
- Considering legislation requiring call centre customer service staff to identify their location on request.
- Considering legislation requiring companies to get agreement with customers, prior to off-shoring customer information.
Action Amongst The Public
- A sustained media campaign.
- Protests and rallies at suitable locations.
- A public exposure of the detrimental impact on customer service and employees.
Joint Union Action
- Met with a number of unions at the National level (AMWU, Professionals Australia, Australian Services Union (ASU), and Finance Sector Union (FSU), who have agreed in principal to a sustained joint union campaign.
There is need for detailed follow-up on this aspect of our campaign
Within Telstra
- We need the support of members to continue to gather the evidence demonstrating that the offshoring is a failure for customers, staff and company performance
To further this programme we have:
- Spent time in Canberra lobbying the crossbench, Labor and Liberal politicians.
- Secured some support from the crossbench including Greens, to work to develop a private members’ bill which would include our and legislative objectives to make it more difficult for companies to offshore jobs.
- Developed a campaign website stopoffshoring.com.au
- Achieved some publicity for the cause.
- Have had a public vigils and a public petition which has received very favorable support from the public
Clearly much more work needs to be done and there must be an allocation of significant additional and consistent resources at the National level of the Communications Division to the campaign.
We are working on this.
EA NEGOTIATIONS: UNIONS TABLE ISSUES
The most recent Telstra enterprise bargaining meeting was held on Thursday 21 May. At the meeting the three unions involved in the negotiations, the CWU, CPSU and Professionals Australia, made a joint presentation to Telstra of the issues their members had raised during EA consultations.
As might be expected, there had been considerable overlap in the issues identified by the unions’ members even though they represent different sections of the Telstra workforce.
Performance management/assessment and performance-based pay problems have ranked high on the list of concerns of all union members’. So has the availability of flexible work arrangements, especially, in the CWU’s case, the availability of RDOs.
The ability of members to move between Job Family and Workstream work models is also a shared concern as are banding/grading issues, although of course there are particular banding problems specific to members of the different unions.
And members want to see more commitments from Telstra about job security and retention of work within the company, rather than the outsourcing and offshoring of Australian jobs.
Other matters put on the table by the unions include:
- Rest breaks
- Future increases to employer superannuation payments.
- Current redundancy and redeployment procedures, particularly the group selection process.
- Use of GPS for performance monitoring and disciplinary action.
- Health and safety hazards in Telstra exchanges and other infrastructure.
At the meeting of 21 May, Telstra and the unions agreed to establish a working party to deal with these health and safety issues.
It is still early days in these negotiations and neither side has yet presented its full “wish list” in terms of specific claims. The coming weeks should provide a clearer picture of the “bottom line” priorities of both Telstra and the unions.
Members will be kept informed through regular bargaining updates in special Bargaining Bulletins available from your state branch and from the national website at www.cwu.org.au