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CEPU Bulletins
Telstra general
03/11/2009 E-Bulletin #20 - Telstra EA negotiations: progress slows 1. Telstra EA negotiations: progress slows 2. Signs of economic recovery? 3. Silcar Telepower agreement 4. Broadcast Australia EA talks continue 5. Kordia Enterprise Agreement 6. CEPU ballot decision shows flaws in Fair Work Act 7. Unions call for bigger super levy 8. Draft national OHS laws released 9. More Hardie cover-ups exposed 10. Work safety/injuries: employees pay the lion’s share 11. Workplace stress: French telco workers strike 12. BT employees face new outsourcing threat 1. Telstra EA negotiations: progress slows The CEPU has expressed its concern that progress in negotiating a new Enterprise Agreement in Telstra is slowing and has resolved to undertake a membership-wide discussion about next steps. In a resolution adopted on 16th October, the Communications Division Executive noted that agreement had still not been reached in three key areas: • The structure of the agreement. Telstra wants to be able to put new employees on different pay arrangements from those that currently apply to EA staff. Those arrangements would be based on classification structures that have not been negotiated with the union • The provisions of the dispute resolution process. Telstra has still not agreed to allow employees to utilise the full extent of Fair Work Australia's arbitration powers to resolve fair treatment disputes between employees and Telstra. • The size of the wage rise, including the payment of backpay. In view of what the CEPU fears may be stalemate in these areas, the Executive determined that members should be consulted about how their claims might now be progressed, including the possibility of renewing the union’s industrial action campaign. State branches have begun contacting members to get their views on the way forward and will be ramping up this activity in the coming weeks. 2. Signs of economic recovery? There is much discussion at the moment suggesting that the Australian economy is finally starting to recover from the global recession. Telstra’s ‘Big Pond’ news reports the following: - “House building has pushed the Australian Construction Industry back into growth.” - “The US economy is not in bad shape – it’s super healthy”. - “Asian markets extended their advance amid renewed faith of a sustainable global recovery”. Australia’s financial system has catapulted into second place on the world rankings of financial centres, with the authoritative World Economic Forum ranking it as better developed than the US and able to withstand the global financial crisis. This is a challenging time for members who are looking at two or three year EBAs. It is important we do not get locked into a poor agreement and miss out on the recovery dividend in the EBA outcomes. 3. Silcar Telepower agreement Silcar Telepower employees met in conference in Sydney on October 7th and 8th in an attempt to resolve issues around their proposed new Enterprise Agreement. To date, employees have twice rejected the proposed EA. The conference was attended by 10 employee representatives, three CEPU officials and by Silcar management . Key issues included the term of the agreement, the size of any pay rise, the trades grade restructure, recalls and stand-down provisions. Informal understandings have been reached on some, if not all, of these issues and Silcar has now undertaken to respond formally to the proposals put to it in the meeting. For their part, the CEPU and other employee representatives will be reporting back to the rest of the staff before the next round of discussions. 4. Broadcast Australia EA talks continue Further negotiations between the CEPU and Broadcast Australia were held on 9th October. Matters discussed included work-related travel, higher duties allowance, salary increase, call-outs, stand down during 10 hour breaks, reconciliation of shit/overtime hours after 8 weeks and additional vehicles for WA. The CEPU is now waiting on a response to a number of these issues. A Bulletin will be sent to all Broadcast Astralia members as soon as that response is received. 5. Kordia Enterprise Agreement Negotiations with Kordia for an Enterprise Agreement covering Maritime Safety Communications Offices is now a step closer to being finalised following a 2 year deal that will provide for a salary increase and the introduction of new allowances. Recent negotiations held in Canberra have resulted in a draft agreement that meets most members’ claims being provided to the CEPU. Subject to the finalisation a few amendments, the draft agreement should be provided to staff next week. 6. CEPU ballot decision shows flaws in Fair Work Act A recent Fair Work Australia (FWA) finding against the CEPU highlights weaknesses in Labor’s Fair Work Act according to an expert on industrial law. University of Adelaide law professor Andrew Stewart said FWA’s decision to deny the CEPU the right to conduct a ballot for industrial action in Australia Post showed that aspects of the new laws were “absurd”. The decision against the CEPU was made last month but the reasons behind it have only just been published. According to FWA, the CEPU had not genuinely tried to get an agreement with Australia Post because the union tried to get certain clauses dealing with contracting out included in a new EA. Members will remember that the Howard Government’s laws severely restricted the range of matters that could be covered by an EA and made it illegal to pursue an agreement that contained “prohibited content”. Labor’s laws removed the term “prohibited content” but still made it illegal to take industrial action in support of claims that were not “permitted matters”. FWA argued that the CEPU was pursuing claims that attempted to restrict an employers’ right to use contractors and because this was not a “permitted matter” the CEPU was not genuinely seeking to reach agreement with Post. Stripped of its fine legal details, what this decision means is that under Labor’s laws unions’ ability to control contracting out still remains restricted, despite Labor’s promise that employers and unions would be given freedom to bargain about any matters that concerned them. Professor Stewart said that the new laws amounted to a "half-baked compromise" that created uncertainty about what could and could not be said about contractors in an agreement. He said there were not any provisions in the Fair Work Act "that tell you for sure whether you can put a term in your agreement regulating the use of contractors or labour hire workers". This FWA decision obviously has implications for all CEPU members, not just those in Australia Post and will also be closely examined by the wider labour movement. Unions have already signalled that they want improvements to the Fair Work Act if Labor wins a second term in government. 7. Unions back call for bigger super levy Unions have renewed calls for Australian employers to contribute more to the superannuation incomes of working Australians. The calls for an increase in the current 9% superannuation levy come as a new report revealed that Australians’ super entitlements lagged behind those of several other countries. The joint study of 11 countries by the Melbourne Centre for Financial Studies and Mercer found that while Australia’s scheme rated high in terms of sustainability and integrity, it was lacking in terms of adequacy, because Australia's level of benefits is lower than other countries. "The reason for our shortcoming is that our contribution rates are not as high as they should be to provide Australian retirees with an adequate retirement benefit, that is if you like, the 9 per cent current level of mandatory contributions should be increased," Mercer’s David Knox said. Mr Knox says Australia says the mandatory super contribution rate should be increased to 12 per cent. The CEPU supported a push at the ACTU Congress that superannuation contributions should move to 15 per cent by 2015 with an initial 12 per cent by 2012. The Government is currently examining Australia’s superannuation scheme and Minister Chris Bowen has called for a national debate on how to improve the adequacy of retirement incomes. 8. Draft national OHS laws released The draft legislation to establish uniform national health and safety laws has now been released for public comment. Submissions on the draft are due by 9th November. As expected, the draft laws closely follow the recommendations of the earlier Government inquiry into Australia’s various state-based OHS systems. Unions have warned that those recommendations mean a levelling down rather than a levelling up of national safety standards. Unions are particularly angry about changes to state laws that will prevent their initiating prosecutions for OHS breaches. They are also concerned that OHS representatives will be exposed to new legal liabilities. Big businesses are clearly winning out when it comes to the lobbying over changes to national health and safety laws. The focus of the proposed new laws is about cutting red-tape and reducing costs for business rather than improving workers' health and safety." The union movement is ratcheting up its campaign to strengthen the laws, following the successful OHS National Day of Action last month. CEPU members who want to get involved in the campaign can find information about future activities by going to the ACTU website at http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/ohscampaign#info. 9. More Hardie cover ups exposed Just four days after the penalties handed to former James Hardie Directors over the funding shortfalls to their compensation fund, another example of the company’s dishonesty has come to the surface. James Hardie never revealed the fact that millions of leaky hessian bags it used to transport asbestos fibre were recycled for other uses, including being used as felt under carpets of Australian homes. Workers who handled and transported those bags have died from asbestos related diseases and there are dangerous risks for people who lived in homes where the bags were used as underlay. Members need to be cautious when having carpets removed or other forms of renovations. The CEPU, through its representation on the Comcare Commission is calling for audits as to where these bags have been used. 10. Work Safety/Injuries: employees pay the lion’s share In Australia each year around half a million accidents occur. The word accident has a connotation of mishap but the reality of this figure is that the vast majority could have been prevented. Each year we lose around 8,000 workers as a result of a work related death: 450 from traumatic incidents and the remaining 7,500 from illness or disease. The highest number are cancers relating to asbestos use but there are others from exposure to hazardous chemicals and substances. These deaths are 4 times higher than the road toll and without wishing to denigrate the trauma of February’s bushfires the death rate from work-related disease and injury is 40 times higher. We should quite rightly ask why there has been no royal Commission into workplace deaths and injuries? But it is workers and the community who pay the biggest price and suffer the biggest hardship from these workplace injuries, not the bosses. Take the figures from 2005-06. In that year Workers Compensation costs were $57.7 Billion i.e. 5.9% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Of these figures 3% of the costs were borne by employers, 49% by the workers themselves and 48% by the community i.e. by Centrelink payments and other costs. Even if the costs of Workers Compensation premiums are added then the employers share still only rises to 18%. Despite all their crying of crocodile tears the employers are getting off lightly. 11. Workplace stress: French telco workers strike Telecommunications workers in France have taken industrial action against management practices at France Telecom which some say have contributed to a series of suicides among staff. Unions estimate that around 40%of the firm's 100,000 workers took part in the work stoppage, and several hundred staged peaceful rallies in Paris and some provincial towns. 24 France Telecom employees have taken their own lives since the beginning of 2008, the majority of them leaving notes referring to pressures at work. The company has undergone massive changes since privatisation in the late 1990s, including tens of thousands of job losses and even some France Telecom executives have expressed the view that this has contributed to stress amongst staff. Earlier this month, company officials were summoned by the French Government, which retains a 27% stake in the company, to provide a “please explain”. The company has now replaced the manager of its French operations and the company chairman and chief executive Didier Lombard has promised to negotiate a "new social contract" with staff. France Telecom has set up a telephone counselling service and has put on hold further management reforms. Australia’s telecommunications workers have experienced similar pressures in recent years, with a number of suicides by Telstra employees having been attributed to workplace stress. It is worth noting, however, that under Australia’s workplace laws, strike action such as that taken in France remains illegal. 12. BT workers face outsourcing threat Employees of British Telecom’s Openreach are being given the choice of accepting changes to current working conditions or seeing their jobs shipped out the door. Openreach is the network services division of British Telecom that was created when the company was subjected to Functional Separation in 2005. Openreach operates as a distinct business within BT, with its own separate agreements, incentive schemes and management objectives. In June, Openreach announced it would move to implement Project Beck, involving the issuing of invitations to tender for both complex work currently performed by Openreach employees and future Next Generation Access work (i.e. the upgrade of the BT network). Following representations from the Communications Workers Union, the company agreed to abandon these plans if employees would agree to changes in work practices, including performing more weekend work, and to changed pay structures for new employees. To date, no agreement has been reached about such changes, with Openreach employees rejecting proposals which they believe would undermine work/life balance and involve too great a reduction in pay rates for new starters. For its part, Openreach says it will re-boot Project Beck. The stage is now set for an escalation of the conflict, including possible industrial action by Openreach employees. The UK events stand as a warning to Telstra employees about the likely impacts of functional (not to mention structural) separation of Telstra. The requirement that Openreach operate as a discrete “company within a company” means that any cost pressures or losses can’t be offset by savings or profits in other areas of BT’s business. This leaves Openreach employees directly in the firing line and heightens the risk of outsourcing. It is because of such precedents that the CEPU is seeking assurances from the Federal Government that the jobs and conditions of Telstra employees will be protected in any forced restructuring of the company. |
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Europe: European transnationals abuse workers’ rights in America | Middle East: Domestic workers in the Middle East have a horrible time : Little better than slavery | Mexico: One dead in clashes at Cananea copper mine | France: Unions call for further action against increase in retirement age | Global: Photo-essay: The world's most repressive workplace environments | France: Millions protest over higher pension age | USA: Mott's Strike in Media Spotlight on Labor Day | South Africa: Strike suspended: Unions claim victory | India: Trade unions go on a 24-hour nationwide strike | Global: Unions Step up Pressure for Jobs and Social Justice– One Month to World Day for Decent Work | USA: Obama Unveils Huge Infrastructure/Jobs Program at Milwaukee’s LaborFest | France: Unions to Strike as Sarkozy Pension Bill Debate Starts | Mexico: ICEM Condemns Repression of Workers by Government, Grupo Mexico | South Africa: Did the World Cup Wreck South Africa? | North America: Hyatt faces strikes and protests in cities across North America
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NSW Telecommunications & Services Branch
