ATTENTION: ALL TELSTRA MEMBERS – JOB CUTS
At 1.45 this afternoon, Communication Workers Union officials were advised of Telstra’s proposal to make some 1400 positions throughout the company redundant.
As it happens, your union had already been advised of this earlier in the day - by the media.
The CWU is shocked by the proposed scale of these job losses. But is it also angry that Telstra has so little respect for its employees and their representatives that it would give the CWU and other Telstra unions no forewarning at all of this announcement.
It says a lot about how much value the company really puts on consultation.
The information the CWU first received was lacking in detail and incomplete. We have since received a fuller breakdown of affected roles by location and designation. However the figures provided at this stage for the company as a whole still do not appear to account fully for the headline figure of 1400 net reductions. And by Telstra’s own admission, some 500 roles which have been slated for removal have not even been identified at this time.
All this leads us to the view that this is a top-down exercise, driven more by abstract head-count than by technological redundancy or procedural efficiencies. It will be Telstra’s customers as well as its employees who will pay the price for this approach as they have so often in the past.
The CWU is meeting with Telstra tomorrow, Thursday 15 June, to seek further details of these proposals. Members will be kept informed of any new developments.
Greg Rayner John O'Donnell Divisional Secretary (Divisional Assistant Secretary (Telecommunications)
