Your Rights at Work: Go back to the table

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Sometimes a company will treat its workers with such disdain it can take your breath away.

What's happened

On Thursday, Telstra's HR department decided to completely cancel collective agreement talks with its workers.

These are the talks that set a safety net of pay and conditions across the whole of Telstra's 32,000-strong workforce. Without these talks, the future pay and job security of these workers are critically at risk.

What you can do to support Telstra workers

Telstra's HR managers can't treat their staff this way - and it can't ignore Australians' opposition to WorkChoices unfairness this way. Tell HR to get back to the bargaining table now using the simple email form to the right of this page.

Background

Labor was elected on the explicit promise that it would abolish AWAs.

But that didn't stop Telstra's HR managers. Over Christmas, they went into overdrive, signing up a further 15,000 employees onto new individual contracts before the paperwork banning AWAs could get through the Parliament.

Now the Rudd Labor Government has banned AWAs, all of these Telstra staff need to have an orderly transition to a collective agreement.

Unions have been representing staff at the talks. We've argued that we want to see the company grow, prosper, and give good service. We want it to provide good, well-paid jobs for all of the staff - not just the senior management on multi-million dollar salaries.

But Telstra's HR managers have refused to bargain collectively with workers represented by their union.

It's just not on.

A new way forward

Frustratingly, unions had offered Telstra a way forward where unions and the company's management could join together with a Memorandum of Understanding. We could put aside this legacy of friction in the interest of staff and the future of the company.

But Telstra's HR managers decided to just up stumps and cancel talks. Not surprisingly, they're using excuses cooked up by their legal team - the exact same lawyers that wrote the Work Choices legislation for the Howard Government.

A more constructive approach is also supported by the Australian government with Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard stating that there is no legal issue standing in the way of Telstra negotiating a new Collective Agreement with unions.

Go back to the table

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Share your thoughts with the ACTU

Telstra HR out on a limb

Mon Aug 04, 2008

Official advice from the Department of Workplace Relations on Friday should compel Telstra Human Resources to go back to the bargaining table. Read the full bulletin here.

Read the ACTU press release: Telstra MOU lawful: management should abide by the umpire's ruling and resume talks

Telstra HR's dirty tricks to lure employees onto AWAs

Mon Jul 21, 2008

After the election, Telstra's HR managers used psychological profiling techniques to sign up 15,000 workers to AWAs just months before the contracts were banned.

Secret documents show the company split its workforce into four distinct groups, developing a different AWA sales pitch for each. (The profiles are on pages 15 and 16.)

Now, many of the workers want to get out of the five-year deals, but the telco is refusing to negotiate.

Read the full Herald Sun article here.