UNION ELECTION RESULTS – BAD OUTCOME FOR MEMBERS IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS, AND FOR POSTAL RANK & FILE MEMBERS.
Whilst the current Victorian officials and Committee of Management members were all re-elected unopposed, the Victorian members voted overwhelmingly for the current Divisional officials, who unfortunately were voted out of office by the votes of the interstate CWU members. The CWU is now controlled at the National level by the NSW Postal officials, who in turn are dominated by the National Electrical and Plumbing divisions.
This is bad news for members in telecommunications and for the postal rank and file.
Let us be clear. The members in telecommunications across Australia will now be very poor cousins in the union and the postal rank and file members in the Communications Division will now suffer even more than they have in the past.
The Postal EBA is up for renegotiation next year and the officials who now dominate the union at the national level are the same officials who agreed to the 1% pay increase per year as part of a previous Postal EBA.
The Telstra EBA is currently being negotiated and as a result of the election, Divisional Assistant Secretary Ken Hardisty and Divisional President Len Cooper will no longer be representing the CWU at the EBA talks.
In more recent times a couple of major issues have emerged in the Telstra EBA talks as part of Telstra’s agenda which must be opposed. Telstra wants to be able to involuntarily redeploy (reassign) an employee who finds themselves in a redundant position, and deny them a redundancy payout if they refuse to take up the reassigned job.
Linked to that they want to refuse employees a redundancy payout if they offer them a job in another company as part of a transmission of business to another company and the employees refuse the job.
Telstra tried this on in the last EBA talks and then common sense prevailed. They are now trying it on again it seems.
Another significant issue is Telstra’s desire to force all NEW employees in the Customer Field Workforce and the Technical Workforce into the Job Family section of the enterprise agreement to be placed on performance pay. Currently these NEW starters have the choice between the Workstream section and the Job Family section of the enterprise agreement.
Clearly this claim spells out Telstra’s goal to ultimately remove the right to negotiate pay and employment conditions with the union.
We remind you that the newly elected national CWU officials intentionally misled Telstra employees about the so-called threat to the 80 weeks plus redundancy payout when there was no threat at all, in the hope that this would help them get elected. They did this in numerous publications, emails and meetings.
How will they deal with the real threats that have emerged in the EA talks? Members had better watch this space very closely.
In addition these newly elected officials supported a “yes” vote in the recent plebiscite to transfer control of communication worker members over to the control of the Electrical Division officials. What will they do now that the members rejected the plebiscite proposals?
We repeat. The results of the election spell trouble ahead for telecommunication and postal workers.
Please keep in close contact with the Victorian Branch and we will keep you informed as per usual.
OPTUS FLAGS NEW REDUNDANCIES
Optus has advised the CWU of a new round of redundancies in its Networks area. The redundancies will affect staff working in Next Generation VAS, Mobile Deployment, the Program Portfolio and Governance Office and Fixed Networks Delivery.
Optus says the redundancies flow from its ongoing attempts to create more efficiencies across its network operations through “centralisation and standardisation” of certain functions as well as through removal of duplication.
Approximately 18 roles will be affected with the redundancies scheduled to take effect on 23 July. Of these approximately 14 are covered by the Optus Employment Partnership Agreement 2012. These roles are spread across New South Wales (13), Victoria (2) and Queensland (3).
Optus says that none of the jobs affected are being sent offshore and that it will attempt to identify redeployment opportunities for these employees. The CWU has asked to be informed about the degree to which this does in fact lead to successful redeployment.
CWU members affected by these redundancies and wanting information and/or support in relation to redundancy and redeployment should contact their state branch.
NBN AGREEMENT APPROVED BY FWC
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has approved a new enterprise agreement covering technical staff at nbn.
The agreement was one of four recently voted on by nbn staff, each covering different sections of the workforce and involving different unions. Of the four, three were voted up by nbn employees and one, covering professional staff, was rejected.
These three agreements were among the first actually voted up by employees affected by the Abbott government’s new rules for bargaining in the Commonwealth public sector.
Those rules have seen Commonwealth employees faced with the prospect of accepting cuts to conditions in return for meagre pay rises, with pay offers not even matching inflation.
Not surprisingly, many have opted for industrial action rather than accept the government’s terms.
The main difference in the nbn situation, at least with the technical staff agreement, was that while the pay rise was low – 4.5% over 3 years – no major changes to employee conditions were involved. Employees had also already gone a year without a pay rise and knew that the government’s policy was a complete ban on back pay.
Given this situation, employees clearly decided to take what was on the table and live to fight another day.
All the nbn agreements were put out for a vote before union negotiations had been concluded. For this reason and because of the low wage rise, the CWU advised its members that it could not recommend that they accept the agreement. Now that employees have spoken, however, the union has applied to be covered by the agreement.
FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS MEAN FEWER AUSTRALIAN JOBS SAY UNIONS
Easing of entry requirements for overseas workers will mean fewer jobs for Australians, unions claim.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is warning that free trade deals with China and, in future, India will mean that both local and international employers operating in Australia will have easier access to cheap labour.
In particular, the relaxing of current “market testing” requirements will mean that it will be easier for employers to bring workers into the country on temporary work (457) visas.
Market testing rules may require employers to show that they have not been able to find local workers for a job before they can apply to bring in labour from overseas. Already, only about a third of successful 457 applications required market testing. The ACTU estimates that under agreements such as the recently signed China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that proportion could sink to 25%.
Under new Investment Facilitation Agreements in the China FTA, companies with projects worth more than $150 million will also be able to negotiate to bring in lower-skilled workers at wage rates that fall below the current wage floor for the standard 457 visa program of $53,990 per annum.
Telecommunications projects are specifically mentioned in the China FTA as falling into this category.
ACTU President, Ged Kearney says that Australia’s temporary visa system is reaching crisis point and instead of fixing the abuse and exploitation, the Abbott Government is making it easier for companies to bring in temporary workers at the expense of local jobs.
“Our temporary visa system needs more regulation to protect job and training opportunities for Australian workers, not less,” she said.
JOHN ELLERY
SECRETARY