Facing up to a Changing World

Occupational Health & Safety Resource Kit.
Proudly brought to you by CEPU: NSW Telcommunications & Services Division

Throughout the world and particularly in Commonwealth countries there has been a tradition of public ownership in telecommunications. Australia has been no exception for most of its history.

This situation has changed quite rapidly during the last decade and today the private sector has a very large role in the telecommunications industry here in Australia as it does in many countries around the world.

Being part of the Australian Government sector gave telecommunications workers a great number of conditions and advantages often denied to trades and semi-skilled workers. This union and our precursors assiduously obtained benefits for our members and for many decades telecommunications workers shared many of the working conditions enjoyed by senior public servants.

For instance our members were covered by the Commonwealth OH&S legislation, commonwealth workers comp arrangements and a raft of regulations that guaranteed trade union activity, free speech, protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave, promotion appeals and so on. A similar situation was also evident in many other countries.

The privatisation of telecommunications has meant that many thousands of telecommunications workers no longer enjoy these benefits. Whilst in the 1970s and 1980s there was a great deal of interest within the commonwealth's union,

professional and executive forums about OH&S issues that concerned our members, our members in the private sector no longer receive this attention given they are part of a much larger employment community.

Consequently, whilst our Telstra members still enjoy some of the benefits deriving from their semigovernmental status, our members in Optus and small contractors are covered by a plethora of state laws different from the Telstra sector. Whether they are of a lesser standard or not is something our research may ultimately disclose. At present though we do known that they are different.

In NSW private sector telecommunications workers are covered by state OH&S legislation and state workers compensation law. This means for instance that whilst an Australian Standard covering a work hazard may have been adopted by the Australian Government and Telstra, and may have been incorporated into a Policy Guide by the Victorian Government so making it mandatory there, it may not be mandatory in NSW meaning that what is compulsory for Optus employees in Victoria may have no legal status whatsoever for Optus employees north of the Murray River. A complex example

of this is the case of OH&S committees here Optus management consistently flout the NSW laws which make such committees and their associated consultative processes compulsory regardless of how management operates in other states.

Ian McCarthy
NSW T&S Branch Secretary, CEPU