ECAs preventing you from improving your conditions and you don’t get a vote!
February 3, 2009
One of the great injustices of Telstra’s “divide and conquer” strategy of releasing non-negotiated, non-union, part A/B agreements to small groups of staff is that the big losers are those who don’t even get a vote – employees in those areas on current AWAs and future Telstra employees.
How can this be?
Because where an Employee Collective (non-union) agreement is approved for an area in nearly all cases it means that for AWA employees, when their AWAs expire, the only option if you wish to be covered by an agreement is to be covered by the vastly inferior pay and conditions clauses contained in part B. For a detailed analysis of the standard Telstra ECA offer go to http://yourrightsattelstra.com
Telstra HR is able to do this because the current discredited WorkChoices provisions allow it. They are “squeezing the last bitter lemon” from this legislation just prior to new laws being introduced from 1 July.
Are all AWA employees being treated in this way?
No. There is an ECA currently being considered by a small group of AWA employees in Service Delivery (West Region – Regional SA and Far West NSW) where employees on unexpired AWAs are being given the opportunity to be covered by part A of the agreement (which contains guaranteed pay rises and superior conditions) when their AWA expires. Telstra HR has the ability to allow employees to terminate their unexpired AWAs with their consent. The question is why is this choice not being provided to all AWA employees? It has been the position of the Telstra unions that there should be a consistent set of pay and conditions for all Telstra employees.
Why do Telstra HR want a two part agreement? Surely everyone should be treated equally?
The answer to this would appear to be that Telstra is using the part B section of its agreement to prevent current AWA staff from improving their conditions of employment to those enjoyed through the current union negotiated EA. In particular, the current lesser conditions in Part B (such as hours of work and sick leave) become entrenched under these proposed ECAs.
What can I do?
Talk to your workmates about the impact upon current AWA employees of the Telstra ECAs. If an ECA is being voted on in your area encourage those voting to vote No.
Email Telstra ECAs and let them know that as a current AWA employee you want to have the choice to be covered by any endorsed agreement. Send a copy of your email to your union.
What if I’m not a union member?
Join! You can do so by calling 1300 362 223.
Where can I find out more?
For more information go to http://yourrightsattelstra.com or call 1300 362 223.
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One Response to “ECAs preventing you from improving your conditions and you don’t get a vote!”
Got something to say?
It is vary obvious that Telstra are using the remaining Industrial laws that are guaranteed to be replaced sometime this year to push it’s workplace agenda. These laws gave the incumbent Government a landslide result at the last election which even knocked the then PM out of his electoral seat.
After Telstra ending negotiations with the unions on a new EA back in August ‘08, they decided to offer a Non-Union ECA to some of it’s staff. This failed miserable.
The creation of Focus Groups in early September ‘08 with the purpose of negotiating with management what we believed should be in a ECA was totally over shadowed by a widely held opinion that the Union should be in this situation, not the employee.
Due to clever investigative work late September ‘08 i.e. Focus groups & an ‘expression of interested’ in an ECA, Telstra now had a more informed idea of what areas would vote up an ECA.
The figures that have been published on the number of people ‘expressing an interest’ are fascinating. Telstra had an approx 25% reply rate (even less if you include those that might of replied who weren’t eligible to vote). We were told that about half of these were a negative response. That leaves around 12% who are actually truly interested.
Originally the ‘expression of interest’ was open up until the 14/11/2008 with ECA’s to be offered “only where there is strong support in the work area” and the closing date for these to be offered was the 31/12/2008. This was then pushed out to the 31/1/2009. It now is apparent ECA’s will be offered up until the end of February.
In response to this the union undertook a campaign where they manage to attain a clear 90% vote in favour of industrial action requesting Telstra Management to negotiate a new EA in good faith and now industrial action is ongoing. Around the same time an independent poll was gathered asking the public whether it was unfair for Telstra to refuse to negotiate with the unions on a new EA. 88% of people polled said ‘yes’.
Telstra has been successful implementing ECA’s in a number of areas with groups possibly even smaller than 6 employees. No one can tell us the number of staff that are now on an ECA or even the results of how many people voted and what were the ‘yes/no’ figures. It seems the scrutiny / transparency of these results is non existent.
The fact that Telstra continue to push these arrangements through even though all the statistics oppose the idea have really made me wonder.
Is it possible it has something to do with the following?
REDUNDANCY
Even though the current redundancy payout is included in the offer it does not include protective clauses where Arbitration can settle any disputes that may arise.
INDEPENDENT UMPIRE
There are no binding arbitration clauses that can be evoked. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission will not be available to settle any disputes that may arise
JOB CLASSIFICATIONS
Job classifications and bandings will have no mandatory mediation before changes can occur.
FACILITATIVE CLAUSE
Telstra could use this clause to change our hours / days of normal time work.
PERFORMANCE BONUS
A fairer system needs to be implemented in a way were it is clear and transparent and has the appropriate appeal process. This will not happen unless it is embedded in an agreement.
PART B
A two tier working arrangement that has considerable lower wages and conditions which enables Telstra over time to remove Part A staff and replace with Part B employees. Not forgetting that there is no choice to move from B to A.
STAFF ASSOCIATIONS
The unions, who have been negotiating with management for all my pay and conditions over many years whether I was a member or not, will be locked out of any future negotiations on working arrangements.