What are they?
1. Movement To Performance Based Pay
- This has been Telstra’s ‘holy grail’ for many years. It’s the thin edge of the wedge (as is the forced redeployment issue).
- New employees and others will be forced into the so-called ‘Job Family’ section of the EA which is really about everyone being on Telstra’s ‘performance based’ pay system. This means eventually, no more negotiations over pay, job banding and pay increases. Management arbitrarily implement these things – whether you like it or not.
- Job Family pay arrangements, and by default the pay arrangements for employees on AWAs and ITEAs, mean no guaranteed pay increases. The only pay rise available is determined by the boss, and is based on your ‘PRDP’ rating and a ‘pay matrix’.
- Forced Redeployment
- You would no longer have the right to choose between redundancy and redeployment. That is there would be forced redeployment/reassignment for employees occupying positions which are declared redundant.
- If Telstra reassigns you to an unsuitable job and you refuse it, you are denied redundancy pay.
- When you are reassigned to a lower paid job you receive no pay increases until you are no longer considered ‘overpaid’.
- When you are reassigned to an unsuitable job, you can’t ‘request’ an appeal until you have been working in that unsuitable job for 3 months. If you are granted an appeal, Telstra do this internally, with no further avenue for appeal of any of Telstra decisions.
- There is nothing to stop Telstra using this process for constructive dismissal (i.e. the employment circumstances you find yourself in leave you no alternative than to resign). Your appeal rights through the Fair Work Commission are very limited.
3. Emergency Duty/Phone Advice
Telstra wants to avoid payment of essential customer servicing allowances (on call, emergent, etc), in certain circumstances thus changing the pay arrangements for phone advice.
This also allows Telstra to get around paying the minimum 3 hours at double time emergency duty entitlement under some circumstances, by changing the intent of emergency duty – in other words, they want to be able to ring you up without any prior warning and only pay 1 hour at double time for the privilege.
4. Pay Offer
The 3% + 3% + 3% (or is it 2.5% + 2.5% + 2.5% ?) payment in no way could be seen as a “buy out” on these major issues.
Telstra’s latest “survey” indicates they could reduce the 3% down to 2.5% by pulling the forced redeployment off the table – but still leave the Performance Based Pay on the agenda – any pay offer is totally meaningless if you move to a Performance Based Pay system
5. Other outstanding Issues
Telstra still has not addressed other issues such as banding, GPS, Performance Based Pay guidelines, etc.
The union will continue to attempt to remove these unacceptable initiatives during EBA bargaining, however if Telstra decides to “cut and run” and put an unchanged EBA out for consideration by the staff we may have no alternative than to consider an increased campaign opposing the EBA.