NBN technicians protest forced pay cut and dodgy employment set-ups outside CommsDay Summit
NBN technicians have reached peak frustration and held a protest in the rain outside the exclusive Comms Day Summit in Sydney this morning as part of ongoing industrial action over cuts to their pay rates, a debacle causing chaos in job bookings and scheduling, pyramid sham contracting arrangements and the NBN rollout debacle.
National President Shane Murphy says, while NBN CEO Stephen Rue was inside the $1500 per head event, talking up the failing network, workers were on the street outside fighting for their rights and a better service for customers.
“The current NBN management couldn’t run a chook raffle, let alone deliver this piece of critical national communications infrastructure in a proper way,” he said.
“The NBN rollout is plagued with issues, not the least of which are dodgy sham employment arrangements, and workers won’t put up with it any longer.
“We need an independent inquiry to get to the bottom of the dodgy dealings in the NBN rollout, how workers have been treated unfairly and how customer service has been impacted.
“One of the key areas for investigation is the NBN Co’s pyramid-style contracting model where companies force down pay rates down so they can skim their own profit from the taxpayer funded project. Everyone gets their cut, leaving workers’ pay squeezed and the taxpayer to foot the bill.
“NBN Co needs to scrap their dodgy pyramid contracting model, improve pay rates and ditch the shonky booking app.
“The subcontractors here today join with hundreds that have already taken action this week and many more afraid to speak out, all fed up with cuts to their pay and a shambolic booking system which is leaving subcontractors and NBN customers high and dry.
“NBN Co and the Federal Government are turning a blind eye to these dodgy employment set-ups and faults with the system. Enough is enough, take action now to fix it,” Mr Murphy said.
