Redeployment: what is a "suitable" job?
Membership feedback from the CWU's EA survey has included may questions about the proposed new redeployment rules, especially around the question of whether a new job is "suitable".
Members have asked, for instance, whether they could be redeployed to another state, or to a job at a lower pay level, or from a Workstream position into a Job Family role.
There is also a widespread suspicion that Telstra will use the proposed new arrangements to performance manage people out of the company so as to save on redundancy payments.
The best protection against all these possibilities is, of course, for the employee to have the right to refuse redeployment and to take a package.
But in response to members’ concerns, the CWU has proposed that Telstra consider including some more specific criteria that would have to be taken into account when initially considering whether or not to redeploy an employee.
These would include the location of the job and the likelihood that, with training, the employee could actually perform the new role.
The union also wants it to be clear that an employee cannot be redeployed out of the Workstream and into the Job Family.
Discussion around these issues is ongoing. As indicated in its survey, however, Telstra’s 3% pay offer still remains conditional on employees accepting the key change to redundancy/redeployment processes i.e. Telstra to decide whether or not you are redeployed, not you.
