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Telstra Wholesale offer: handle with extreme caution

Telstra’s management spin doctors have been hard at work over the past 24 hours spruiking the new offer to Wholesale and Service Advantage staff.

They’ve been talking up the proposed pay rises and potential performance bonuses, but what the media manipulation is really designed to obscure is the deficiences buried deep within the 58 page document.

Make no mistake: behind this take it or leave it non-union pay offer is a management strategy to drive down the wages and conditions of its employees. Numerous leaks from within the company have exposed this strategy.

Earlier this week, there were media reports about a new set of internal HR documents that revealed management believes the industry leading pay standards negotiated over many years through collective bargaining and union representation are too high

How does it plan to do this? By splitting the workforce into two classes, with inferior pay and conditions for all new employees and thousands on soon-to-expire Australian Workplace Agreements.

It’s in the conditions of this group – the so-called Part B workers – that the sting is hidden.

They are the frontline of a concerted push by Telstra management to drive down pay and conditions over time.

In fact, Part B agreements are no more than ‘collective’ versions of AWAs, and a way of ensuring workers on current AWAs and new employees will have inferior conditions.

On an initial assessment, unions had discovered these following traps in the offer to Wholesale and Service Advantage employees.

For all Part B employees (including up to 21,000 people on AWAs as the contracts expire next five years):

• There will be no guaranteed annual pay rises (clause 38).
• Paid overtime will not be available to anyone earning over $52,000 a year (clause 37.3.2).
• Hours of work will be averaged over 12 months, rather than a fixed 36.75 hours every week (clause 40).

Additionally, for new employees:

• Redundancy entitlements will be cut from four to three weeks per year for the first 5 years of service (clause 45.7.2).
• Redundancy pay will be capped at 50 weeks, compared to 80 weeks now (clause 45.7.2).

For current employees under Part A, the proposal will not keep pace with inflation (forecast by the Reserve Bank to be 5% this calendar year) and will do nothing to ensure experienced staff stay with the company.

Current employees will rightly be sceptical about the annual performance bonuses proposed by Telstra.

The total bonus pool for Wholesale will be not much than $200,000 over three years – a pittance when divided across the 300 staff in Wholesale covered by the agreement (approximately $222 per year).

But in reality, the vast bulk of employees will receive no bonus. Many Telstra staff tell us that the company’s performance pay scheme is unregulated and completely at the discretion of management, and performance bonuses are code for working harder and longer.

The previously leaked slides confirm that management plans to close the gap between Telstra’s industry-leading wages and the rest of the telco sector.

However the spin doctors may try to deny it, it’s there in black and white in their own slides.

It’s hard not to form the conclusion, that the structure of the Telstra deal is designed to allow the company to performance manage more expensive workers out of the company.

There are other flaws in the offer from Telstra, such as limited access to dispute settling mechanisms, handing more power to the company to be judge, jury and executioner in any dispute with you.

And where is the job evaluation and classification system?

For more information, contact your union, which will have completed a detailed analysis.

Telstra workers will make up their own minds about this but on the face of it, there’s a lot at risk.

The offer from the company to provide legal advice is of little comfort.

Genuine collective bargaining, with representation from unions, is the best option for Telstra employees to receive a fair agreement that recognises their contribution to the company, maintains their industry leading pay and keeps their conditions.

Its time for Telstra to come back to the table and properly negotiate an agreement with its staff representatives.

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