Telstra workers should be given the choice to have their unions negotiate a collective agreement rather than have the company’s managers push a non-negotiable job contract upon them.
Unions have today applied to the industrial umpire, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, to help end the dispute with the company by conducting a ballot of Telstra employees about whether they want a union-negotiated collective agreement or a non-union deal as the company is insisting.
Telstra management is using the damaging remnants of the Howard Government’s Work Choices IR laws to deny workers the right to be represented by unions.
Many Telstra staff – both union members and non-members – rightly believe they can get a better pay and conditions from genuine collective bargaining.
Telstra’s own documents show union negotiated enterprise agreements have delivered 15% above the ‘market’.
They mistrust the company after it was revealed Telstra managers have a plan to slash the company’s wages bill by sidelining union involvement in negotiations over pay and conditions.
Since Telstra unilaterally walked away from the negotiating table last month, the 70% of workers covered by the current enterprise agreement have been denied their choice to be professionally represented in bargaining.
That’s like saying you can become a member of a golf club but not be allowed onto the greens.
The non-negotiable pay offer made by Telstra to some staff this week fails to keep pace with a Reserve Bank forecast inflation rate of 5% this year, and would cut key conditions such as overtime and redundancy entitlements for new employees.
There has been feedback to unions and the ACTU that Telstra employees want to have their wages and conditions to be negotiated by unions but many are too scared to speak up for fear of their jobs.
So that’s why we’ve asked for the help of the Industrial Relations Commission to hold a secret ballot and give Telstra workers a say (read the supporting documents here and here).
This is a very simple request, and a litmus test of Telstra management’s respect – or lack of it – for its workforce.
This is about management having a co-operative relationship with their employees, and we would welcome Telstra’s involvement in supporting the ballot.
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