Telstra structural announcement
By now, you would have been informed of Telstra’s intentions to pursue a corporate restructure that would see the company, as it is today, broken up in to three wholly-owned subsidiaries:
InfraCo Fixed would own and operate ducts, fibre, data centres, subsea cables and exchanges
InfraCo Towers would own and operate physical mobile towers
Telstra ServeCo would own and operate software defined networking and focus on innovation and services
So what does this mean for our members?
At this point, the consultation process has only just begun and Telstra is currently proposing for the new structure to take effect from December 2021.
At this early stage, final decisions around the structure have not been made and Telstra has made clear their intentions to engage in a genuine consultation process with your Union, that would span many months.
We will actively participate in that process and an initial meeting with Telstra will be occurring within the next 24 hours, where we expect to be provided with a more in-depth understanding of the proposal, including any possible impacts to our members and their employment.
At this early stage, we have identified three key priority areas to focus on, as the consultation process begins:
- Job security Telstra claim this restructure is part of their T22 planning. There are already a number of positions identified as being surplus to Telstra’s requirements under T22. We will be seeking undertaking that there be no further job cuts, in addition to those already announced as part of T22, will occur as a result of this restructure.
- Maintaining the status quo Members will remember that during the most recent bargaining round, rumours had viciously swirled around some sort of structural separation of Telstra’s assets and workforce. Measures taken by members to engage in industrial action, which significantly strengthened the Clause 47 provisions in our Agreement, will now prove to be crucial to ensure that members who may be transferred to one of the three identified possible subsidiaries will not be disadvantaged in their employment conditions, redundancy arrangements and superannuation benefits.
- Bargaining The current enterprise agreement expires next year, and we expect bargaining to commence sometime in the first half. We will be considering the proposal currently on foot to ensure the best possible structure of any replacement agreement provides adequate coverage for our members spread across the three subsidiaries.
Keeping our fingers on the pulse in these three priority areas will ensure that members are not disadvantaged in their employment, nor overburdened in their ability to provide the essential services and network infrastructure that the Australian people rely so heavily on, and are entitled to.
We will continue to keep you up to date as the consultation process evolves.
Yours faithfully
