The CEPU today said it had been surprised at Telstra’s decision to sack up to 1400 workers, and was disappointed the company had decided not to consult with workers through their union.
Months into the planning by Telstra executives and today Telstra workers and their union were ambushed without any prior notice.
The union’s National Secretary Greg Rayner said workers had been left in the dark and were now left wondering what their families’ future held.
“Telstra has clearly prioritised the impact of this decision on their share price above the ethical obligation to speak with workers about their decision – the first we heard of it was in the news.”
Telstra’s cost cutting exercise is not only devastating for the workers who will lose their jobs, but is also seriously concerning for Australian’s nationwide who rely on Telstra’s operations.
The union’s National President Shane Murphy said the decision would have a huge impact Telstra Workers there families and on overall customer service, faults and repairs.
“They simply will no longer have the workforce to get the job done so people can look forward to much longer wait times and frustration with increased outages – there is just no way around that conclusion.”
He said the union had attempted to reach Telstra throughout the day, but they were busy live streaming on Facebook.
“It says something about their priorities that they were too busy getting the technical issues sorted to live stream a press conference, to speak with workers and their union representatives.
“The sad irony was that we had a Telstra outage while trying to watch the live stream press conference and the video cut out.”
The union and Telstra are scheduled to meet at 2pm tomorrow.
Media contact: Tim O’Halloran 0409 059 617
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