TELSTRA HFC CASE LATE NEWS

Telstra indicated the day after the decision was published that it would appeal this decision.

TELSTRA HFC CASE WE WIN ON JURISDICTION

This week the FWC has handed down its decision on the issue of jurisdiction. Telstra argued that the FWC could not hear the matter. The FWC rejected that argument. The hearing was in mid February - 6 months ago..
See the Decision and some short extracts below.
Now that the Commission has jurisdiction, the arguments will be made that the members involved are redundant, and that they should be treated as redundant in accordance with the EBA.

TELSTRA HFC CASE EXTRACTS FROM DECISION

[3] The dispute relates to whether the jobs of the affected members were made redundant within the meaning of clause 40.2 or clause 43 of the Telstra Limited Enterprise Agreement 2024-2027 (or Current Agreement) when Telstra ceased managing, operating and maintaining the Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) Network, which delivered high-speed broadband and pay TV services to homes across Australia. In March 2025, Telstra announced to its staff that it had "successfully decommissioned the last remnants of the Telstra Hybrid Fibre Coaxial Network." But the final step in switching off the network was just that; the process had begun years earlier.
[5] The crux of the (Telstra) arguments is that the uncontested evidence of the affected members is that their jobs were redundant prior to 1 October 2024, and so this dispute is about whether the affected members were redundant under an earlier, no longer operating enterprise agreement, being the 2022 Agreement. The respondent submits that where the dispute is about a matter under the 2022 Agreement, the Commission does not have jurisdiction to arbitrate it as that agreement ceased to operate on 30 September 2024, when it was replaced by the Current Agreement.
[6] The (CWU) submission is that the affected members' jobs were redundant "from 2022 onwards" but it became "clear that every HFC job was redundant by March 2025, at the latest." Further, the applicant submits that the dispute arose when it took the first step in the dispute settlement procedure under the enterprise agreement. There is no dispute that the applicant first notified Telstra of a dispute in June/July 2025 and sought that the Commission arbitrate the dispute in October 2025, during the operation of the Current Agreement.
[18] I am satisfied that the Commission does have jurisdiction to deal with this dispute.
[27] Fifth and last, even if I were to accept the narrower interpretation advanced by the respondent, I am of the view that a submission, or an alternative submission, of the applicant is that, if a redundancy had not arisen earlier, it arose in March 2025 when the final step in switching off the HFC network occurred. That factual circumstance is undeniably within the operation of the Current Agreement.

SUPERANNUATION IS NOT BROKEN

Superannuation is one of the greatest wins Australian workers have ever fought for. It gives us dignity and security in our retirement. It represents trillions of dollars of wealth earned by working people that billionaires and big business can't touch. Pauline Hanson doesn't like that. She claimed the superannuation system is 'broken'. This despite the fact that more working Australians rely on superannuation for financial security than the age pension compared to a decade ago.
Help spread our message to more working Australians, so Pauline knows she won't get away with attacking our rights at work.