TELSTRA EBA

The meetings continued with no reportable progress. We meet again Monday this week.

VICKI BRADY: JUST ANOTHER CEO.

Claiming to be industry leading, Telstra resorted to the age old remedy when justifying another round of large sackings.
Telstra says it will cut 10% of the staff. And this will magically not only improve customer service but grow the "business".
The new buzz work "business" has crept into HR Jargon. It replaces the name of the decision maker. I had to look up what a "business" is.
Interestingly, a "business" is a collection of ferrets.
Ferrets apparently sleep most of the day and offer a terrible smell if disturbed. The word ferret comes from a Latin word meaning "little thief".
The CEO got a real confidence boost from the share market. Shares immediately fell 2.72% to close at $3.57. Oops!
Then after an inspiring explanation, the shares fell a further 4.2%. to $3.42.
It will take some time, and perhaps new management, to recover.

GOOD FAITH BARGAINING - TELSTRA STYLE

The announcement of 2800 redundancies came as a surprise as only the day before the announcement, we were bargaining for a new enterprise agreement, and Telstra remained silent!
Telstra has stolen the future of many workers, particularly in the Purple business. The priority is "profit", which is also a code word for executive bonuses.
In the bargaining talks the previous day we argued strongly that performance payments for workers must be achievable, not set by the performance over which they have no control. Telstra rejected that radical idea.
Telstra might be a better company if they rewarded those who actually do the work, not those who measure it!

TELSTRA REDUNDANCIES - MEETING WITH TELSTRA

Following Telstra's appalling surprise job cuts announcement on Tuesday morning, the CWU demanded THAT Telstra commence meaningful consultation in an effort to examine ways to minimise the impact on employee livelihoods.
At a time when most can least afford it, Telstra has placed its employees' families ability to meet their financial obligations in the firing line as a result of what is essentially poor executive decisions.
In our first meeting with Telstra since the announcement, we pressed the company on the basis for the numbers announced, as well as the disgraceful timing of their announcement - smack bang in the middle of negotiating new enterprise agreements across the Telstra Group of businesses.
This is what we know so far:
- We are told that the 2800 job cuts announced are reflective of the "upper threshold" as 90% of these are yet to even be identified.
- The 377 jobs which have been identified for redundancy across Telstra Enterprise (including Telstra Purple), Product & Technology, InfraCo & Global Business Services, will be discussed in more detail in the coming days - with Telstra confirming its intention to remove these positions immediately.
- further tranche is expected to be identified by July 2024, with the bulk to be finalised by the end of this calendar year.
- The Union is in communication with Telstra and seeking first and foremost to take all necessary steps to save as many jobs as possible, and ensure all affected employees receive adequate support, through counselling services, access to job swaps, and a volunteer first approach.
Members have the right to appeal any decision in respect of the above, and to seek Union representation during this process.

NBN REDUNDANCIES (NOT FIELD ENGINEERS)

Some members have raised the issue of redundancies in another technical area of NBN. We were not advised by NBN but we are following up.

TZV (ESTA) EBA DEVELOPMENTS

This week the 4 unions conducted a survey of members to determine if the current offer is a suitable compromise between out claims and the TZV offers. This follows a long period of negotiations and addressing many issues. As always, the current position is a compromise. The results will be out this week.
See the current TZV position web page for details.

ACTU CALLS FOR WAGES BOOST

The ACTU reiterates its call for a 5% increase in minimum and award wages, along with an additional interim increase of at least 4% for workers in key feminised occupations, ahead of the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review hearing in Sydney .
The Fair Work Commission's decision will impact the pay of 2.6 million workers, or one in four Australian workers.
The ACTU argues that a 5% increase is necessary to help workers deal with cost-of-living pressures and recover real wages lost during the pandemic. The ACTU also advocates for a supplementary interim increase of at least 4% for workers in historically undervalued feminised industries, such as early childhood education, healthcare support, and disability home care. This would be a first step in addressing systemic gender pay inequity, ahead of a complete assessment.
The submissions by the ACTU highlight that the pay rises will have almost no impact on inflation, unlike corporate profits which have grown at nearly three times the rate of minimum and award wages since the start of the pandemic. The wage increases could be covered with less than 1% of last year's corporate profits. The 5% and 9% claims are also shown to have no negative impact on inflation, with ABS data from the last couple of years showing historic minimum wage and award pay increases coinciding with a significant drop in inflation.
A 5% wage increase would raise the minimum wage to $24.39 per hour, increasing the annual full-time rate by $2,295 to $48,200. Employer group proposals would leave some of Australia's lowest-paid workers nearly $1,350 worse off each year compared to the ACTU's claim. For workers in feminised industries, the combined 9% increase the ACTU is proposing would mean a full-time care worker could see their pay boosted by about $90 per week.
The Commission's decision usually comes down in early June ahead of the pay rises taking effect on 1 July 2024.

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - EDITORIAL

Timing of Telstra's workforce cuts raise suspicions about spectre of AI
May 21, 2024 - 4.48pm
The timing couldn't have been more unfortunate. Last week, communications giant Telstra announced it had hired software firm Infosys to automate more of its software engineering capabilities and accelerate its use of artificial intelligence.
Then, on Tuesday, it said it would have to cut 9 per cent of its workforce. The proposed mass redundancies at one of the country's biggest employers are a shock but also raise community fears about the future of jobs in the face of the rise of AI, even though Telstra said the losses were unrelated to machine learning.
Telstra revealed its plans to dump up to 2800 workers by year's end as part of its latest cost-cutting measures. The redundancies are aimed at improving a poorly performing division. However, that has not stopped the man versus machine headlines.
The first jobs to go are 377 consultants' positions within Telstra Enterprise which provides high-priced IT services (cybersecurity, cloud services, backups) to businesses. Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady said further redundancies would be announced over the coming months. The telco expects the cuts will save $350 million.
Telstra has a workforce of about 31,000 people, and the company had foreshadowed cuts were coming. Last February, Telstra started a detailed review of the domestic enterprise business after reaping the benefits of rising prices, a bumper profit and strong mobile business growth. Income for the half-year rose to $11.7 billion, a 1.2 per cent increase from the same half in the previous year. Net profit after tax was $1 billion, up 11.5 per cent from the same half in the previous year.
Brady told a press conference on Tuesday the cuts would have no impact on customer service teams, but there were parts of Telstra's business that were not delivering to expectations. "We have to make significant ongoing investments in our infrastructure, our technology and our services to deliver what our customers need today and into the future," she said. "The actions we are announcing today are difficult, but they are necessary. We need to be a more efficient and sustainable business."
As part of the redundancy announcement, Brady also revealed Telstra would drop controversial inflation-linked price increases from its post-paid mobile plans, meaning there would be no price rise on July 1 for some customers.
Earlier this year we suggested Australia would soon start to feel the impact of artificial intelligence. Much like the launch of the World Wide Web in 1993, AI comes with very obvious and immediate benefits as well as potential drawbacks. The Albanese government acknowledged the upside, estimating that adopting AI and automation could add an extra $170 billion to $600 billion a year to Australia's GDP by 2030.
Many large employers have already embraced AI, which has replaced outsourcing as the latest fashionable business tool. But the controversy surrounding Telstra's cuts cannot be laid at the feet of AI. Rather, they are an example of the human cost of cost saving as the telco giant seeks to put its house in order and companies reconsider the cost of using expensive AI technology in uncertain economic times.
While Telstra's proposed cuts, coming straight after its AI announcement, inadvertently raise the long-term spectre of AI's impact on jobs, the telco needs to assure the competition regulator, the ACCC, that its services will not suffer from the proposed redundancies and new pricing strategy.