Telstra employees will be infuriated by today’s revelations that Telstra Directors are indulging in an extravagant, all-expenses paid weekend in Las Vegas, while at the same time refusing to negotiate a fair collective wage agreement for its workforce, according to their Union, the CEPU.
The CEPU, has publicly condemned the perk-fest as a smack in the face to workers struggling to get a fair and decent wage increase.
“This is just another example of their double standard, with one night’s accommodation at the Bellagio more than the average weekly wage of a Telstra employee,” said the CEPU.
“At a time when management refuses to talk with employees and their Unions about a new wage deal, this Las Vegas jaunt reinforces the hypocrisy that has gripped sections of senior management.
“Telstra’s CEO has no trouble settling his $13.4m remuneration package – with frequent overseas trips thrown into the mix – but if employees ask for a fair share of the wealth they helped create in the telco, they’re made to scratch and struggle to get a good deal.
“It’s no wonder 90% of CEPU members voted to take strike action against the company.”
Telstra workers, as notified strategically by their particular Unions and branches, will continue with industrial action this weekend with bans being place on the performance of overtime, recalls and call backs Saturday and Sunday.
The CEPU said the weekend action was designed to avoid possible impacts on the public but there may be instances where fault repair might be delayed.
The CEPU adds that is prepared to make available its board room located at Level 3, 81 George Street, Parramatta for future meetings, including an EBA meeting, at no cost should it be difficult to find a suitable meeting venue within Australia.
Members are encouraged to read and pass on the interesting article below to all work mates that appeared in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.
Oh lucky man … Trujillo bets on Vegas
Sydney Morning Herald
9 January 2009
Matt O’Sullivan
TELSTRA’S directors, including the chief executive, Sol Trujillo, have descended on the most unorthodox of destinations for a board meeting – the world’s gambling capital.
The 10 directors began arriving yesterday in Las Vegas where they are staying at the plush Bellagio Hotel. A first-class return ticket to Las Vegas from Sydney costs almost $11,000.
Developed by the US billionaire and casino king Steve Wynn, rooms at the Bellagio cost from $328 a night to $1700 for a suite. The hotel featured prominently in the film Ocean’s Eleven.
The trip is sure to raise eyebrows among Telstra’s workers and its 1.6 million shareholders, as well as trustees of the Federal Government’s Future Fund, which has a 16 per cent stake in the company. Thousands of Telstra workers will resume rolling strikes this weekend, after the company broke off enterprise bargaining negotiations in July. The company is in the throes of laying off 10,000 workers by next year.
Las Vegas has become a regular pilgrimage for Telstra’s management and board since Mr Trujillo took the reins in July 2005. Every January the city hosts one of Mr Trujillo’s favourite trade fairs, the Consumer and Electronics Show, which runs for four days until Sunday.
Speakers at the fair include the Microsoft chief executive, Steve Ballmer, who fronted Australian investors along with Mr Trujillo at Telstra’s annual briefing in November.
The Telstra chairman, Donald McGauchie, said Las Vegas’s main attraction was the trade fair, which gave executives and directors the chance to meet suppliers and see new technology.
“It’s also to actually see where the evolution of the technology of the industry is taking us. Australia is a tiny market,” he told the Herald from Las Vegas yesterday. “We are literally at the end of the earth in terms of the size of the market and our physical location. We have come to the mountain to see the sort of things that we want to see and get a good look and scan the horizons. This is the opportunity.”
Mr McGauchie said the management team made the trip to Las Vegas every January while the board went every two years.
The Telstra board includes the anti-Gunns pulp mill campaigner Geoffrey Cousins, the former National Australia Bank boss John Stewart and John Zeglis, an American who is a former AT&T executive.
The high-flying habits of Telstra executives were exposed last year when a report from the National Audit Office showed that they benefited from a lavish trail of expenses on an overseas tour to tout Telstra shares in the lead-up to T3 in 2006.
The Telstra management on the tour, including Mr Trujillo, demanded to stay at exclusive hotels – in New York, the St Regis; in London, the Berkeley – at a cost of more than $1300 a night for each person.
Yesterday Mr Trujillo and Mr McGauchie flew into Las Vegas after the chief executive briefed US investors in Arizona’s state capital, Phoenix.
Mr Trujillo has a close association with Phoenix, the hometown of his friend and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Mr Trujillo is also expected to make what has also become an annual pilgrimage to the Swiss ski resort of Davos at the end of the month for the annual World Economic Forum.
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