CWU T&S WEEKLY BULLETIN NO 2021 / 33
15 August 2021
TELSTRA EBA TRAP
Telstra is conducting a pulse survey that is grossly misleading.
In EBA negotiations, Telstra wants to introduce split shifts and even ask you to waive penalties and/or overtime. They also want Saturday morning to be within ordinary time. Of course they say it will be voluntary. In practice, the secret performance and redundancy assessments destroy any trust of the bosses.
So when they ask "If you don't currently do this, would you like the opportunity to do so? For example: A shiftworker may want to work from 8am to 12pm, take a break until 4pm and then start working again until 8pm.
Telstra does not say that your EBA rights to shift penalties or overtime for working beyond 7pm would be suspended. These are precious rights. It's a trap!
POST PAID VACCINATION LEAVE
Australia Post has now agreed to the Union's calls for paid leave for members to obtain a COVID-19 vaccination. Union members can now arrange to leave work up to two hours early, on paid time, to attend a pre-booked vaccination appointment, or attend a walk-in vaccination clinic.
JAB NOT MANDATORY
We do not support mandatory vaccinations.
While debate rages, the general view is this:
Unless there is a public health order in place, you cannot be forced by an employer to get the jab.
If you are being pressured to take the jab, contact us immediately and we will follow up.
We note that Optus and Australia Post have confirmed that they are not mandating them.
The ACTU emphasises that employers and unions recognise that for a small number of high-risk workplaces there may be a need for all workers in a workplace to be vaccinated to protect community health and safety. These are serious decisions that should not be left to individual employers and should only be made following public health advice based on risk and medical evidence.
We do strongly encourage members, based on current health advice, to get vaccinated - and it is critical that members who have put themselves and their loved ones at risk throughout this pandemic are not prevented for a second longer from receiving a vaccine, should they desire one.
MEMBER CORNER
With Telatra profits up and a somewhat brighter financial future,
if we can't get at least get a near CPI pay increase (3.8% for last 12 months),
it would be an absolute insult to the staff who have had to adapt the massive changes, more automated software learning expectations and little training on new products and technology , increased workload and stress under covid restrictions.
Also there are approximately 8000 less staff than last EA to pay.
TELSTRA ANNUAL REPORT
Telstra said it is starting to see benefits from two years of "hard transformational work", saying it has reached "a turning point in [its] financial trajectory", with several key milestones met.
Telstra reported an 11.6% reduction in income to $23.1bn and a net profit after tax of $1.9bn. Profit was up3.4% (from $1.8bn in 2020.
Some of the achieved metrics included the targeted reductions in inbound call volumes as well as staff numbers. On call volumes, Penn said Telstra's aspiration "had been to reduce the number of calls to our contact centres by two thirds by FY22. That means that over time we will need smaller contact centres for these customers and more staff can work from home. "We are on track to have all inbound calls from our consumer and small business customers answered in Australia by June next year." We now have 80 per cent of our contact centre consultants in Australia choosing to work from home on any given day
Telstra reported that it "reduced around 8300 net full-time roles, meeting its T22 commitment one year early, while also reducing 17,400 indirect roles and removing on average more than four management layers."
To unlock the true value of our infrastructure, we reached a significant agreement with a high calibre consortium - comprising the Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Sunsuper - to sell 49% of our InfraCo Towers business for $2.8 billion. We will retain 51 per cent ownership and will still own the active parts of our network, ensuring we can continue to deliver the industry's leading mobile coverage and maintain our network leadership. Approximately 50 %, or up to $1.35 billion, of net proceeds of this deal will be returned to shareholders during FY22 via an on market share buy-back.
POST EBA - VOTING TIME - VOTE NO CALL
The following is from the Vic T&S Branch:
Given these circumstances of exclusion, a number of the technical staff chose to use their rights under the Fair Work Act, and were nominated as formal bargaining agents by a number of their peers. This occurred in NSW and Victoria.
Technical Bargaining Agents met with representatives of Australian Post, including Scott Murphy and Tony Stavropoulos (HR) and commenced bargaining with the lodgement of a "log" of 20 items that were of particular importance to the Technical staff. Amongst those was pay, however this was considerably down the list.
Items included in the 20 items in the log were appropriate training, removal of casual staff, a separate EBA for techs, pay, allowances and super increases, limitations on the use of contractors in technical areas (clarification of what the term "mails" means - to include parcels clearly in that definition), promotion appeal changes, Board of Reference scope, facilitative agreement tightening, apprentices, Disability allowance clarification, consultative arrangements tightening, RRR appeal processes, O/T rates across public holidays, a national working party (similar to the last "Tech Grades review" of some 6 years ago. These claims were developed by your appointed bargaining reps, based on issues of concern over the years.
Post have basically rejected almost all of these claims. The Technical group has not really benefitted out of this negotiation. Some would argue that neither have most of the Post staff, but our focus is on the tech issues.
Given the current situation, we believe the current EBA proposal should be rejected, and the parties returned to the table to re-commence "good faith bargaining" in order to progress issues that are vital to the Australia Post techs.
The Vic T&S Branch, on behalf of its' technical staff members, and despite the 3% pay offer, urges you to reject (i.e. vote NO) and get the negotiations recommenced, with the inclusion of your Branch representatives into the bargaining group. This would allow the unresolved Technical issues to be agitated, and treated seriously, by Post management. JOHN ELLERY
The Vic T&S Branch, alongside the NSW T&S Branch, has been excluded from any Union involvement with the Australia Post EBA, despite having the overwhelming majority of Technical members. This outrageous decision by the Divisional Executive of the Union has not allowed the main technical issues (that we are very familiar with given the nature and size of our technical membership) to be agitated at a Union/Management EBA bargaining level. This is why the Vic T&S Branch reps, alongside the NSW T&S Branch and Vic P&T Branch reps, voted against endorsement of the EBA deal at a recent Divisional Executive. Four branches voted to endorse the deal, and the combined Tasmanian ETU (electrical division) branch also opposed the deal, but they have no voting power at the Communications Division Executive.
NBN PAY POLICY
The following is an extract from a letter from NBN.
The current Technical EBA provided for three pay increases:
During bargaining in 2018, it was known to the parties that there were significant delays in enterprise agreement approvals in Fair Work Australia "FWA". It was agreed that nbn would pay the first increase on the date of the "yes" vote, then every 12 months from the "yes" vote. For the Technical EBA this was July each year, and to ensure that there would not be a delay in employees receiving the increases they had voted in favour of. As it transpired the delay was six months in FWA.
As a result of paying the increase on the "yes" vote for the years referred to above, there is no nominated pay increase for July 2021. We are pleased to advise that nbn has decided to provide a discretionary pay increase of 1.75% to all EBA covered employees, so they can continue to benefit from a pay increase at 12- month intervals. For the Technical EBA this means a discretionary increase will be applied in the first full pay period in July 2021.
The discretionary increase is designed to cover the gap until July 2022. Any increases beyond that will be determined as part of bargaining for the next Enterprise Agreement.
All Employees covered by an enterprise agreement, including the Technical EBA, will see their superannuation contribution increase from 10% to 10.5% from the first full pay period after 1 July 2021. Nbn will fund the 0.5% increase to super contributions, so no requirement for employees to do so from their current remuneration.
Previous rounds of bargaining have provided for employees covered by the Technical EBA to receive superannuation at 10%, while salaried staff receive 9.5%. While it was open to nbn to have EBA covered employees remain at 10%, consistent with the EBA, nbn felt that was not in the spirit of what had been previously negotiated.
Overall, EBA covered employees' fixed remuneration will increase by a total of 2.25%. Consisting of the 1.75% wage increase plus 0.5% increase in superannuation. For employees covered by the Technical EBA the increases will be effective from 12 July 2021,
I am writing to update you on two decisions nbn has taken as they relate to the nbn and CEPU Technical Employees Agreement 2018 - 2021 (Technical EBA). The first relates to a discretionary wage increase and the second is to confirm nbn's approach to the 0.5% increase in superannuation.
2.25% paid in July 2018
2% paid in July 2019
1.75% paid in July 2020
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