Telstra Bargaining Update - 26 April 2024
Your Union bargaining representatives met with Telstra again this week, and formally submitted the following claims:
1. Annual shutdown – no forced annual leave
Your Union has received a significant amount of feedback from members regarding this issue. Members are strongly opposed to Telstra continuing to force employees to take leave during the annual shutdown.Annual leave provides for employees to manage their work/life balance and the annual shutdown results in employees being forced to avail of up to 40% of that entitlement at a time that may not suit them.
Telstra are considering this claim and will respond at a later date.
2. Removing the unfair treatment of ‘exempt employees’
‘Exempt employees’ do not receive payment for overtime, do not receive public holiday penalties and are unable to access the on-call allowances. ‘Exempt employees’ include the following categories of Telstra Group employees:
- Job Family Customer Support (technical and non-technical), People Managers, Corporate Support and Sales or field based employees earning at least $107,042.13 and those in individual contributor roles earning at least $123,237.02; and
- Workstream employees earning at least $131,969.75
We have asked Telstra to remove this exemption and to recognise all employees who are required to work longer and unsociable hours, fairly.
Telstra are considering this claim and will respond at a later date.
3. The ability to move out of Job Family at any time
As a matter of fairness and equity, employees should be given the choice to move to job family or workstream and this should not be limited in anyway.
If Telstra believes that job family is robust and effective, they should allow employees to exercise choice. Maintaining two separate classification systems and pay schedules for employees in some cases performing the same work is unfair.
Telstra have rejected this claim.
4. Union presence at staffing inductions
We have sought for the Unions to attend new employee inductions in order to explain the role of the Union, the Enterprise Bargaining process and to ensure new employees understand their rights.
Doing so will ensure new employees are well-informed about their rights within their new workplace.
Telstra are considering this claim and will respond at a later date.
Bargaining will continue next week and we will keep members updated as talks progress.
In the meantime, should you require any further information, please contact your Branch Official.
