Ballot pulled ahead of court stoush

February 17, 2009

In a dramatic backdown, Telstra has withdrawn a non-union deal just minutes before a court case was due to start to stop it.

The case has raised questions about the lawfulness of Telstra HR’s strategy of offering non-negotiable “agreements” to small groups of workers around the nation.

On Monday, the Community and Public Sector Union lodged an urgent application in the Federal Court seeking injunction to prevent Telstra going ahead with an ECA ballot in Consumer Marketing and Channels (Customer Solutions Management). 

CPSU members had raised a number of concerns about the undemocratic aspects of the ECA ballot process.

In particular, while the proposed ECA covers staff at sites across several states, members could not identify staff to be covered beyond their own location.

Despite repeated requests, Telstra refused to provide members with the details. This meant that staff were being grouped with others for the purposes of a vote, but were given no opportunity for communication or discussion with the other employees who were going to be subject to it.   

Many concerned members from different areas have contacted the union over the last couple of months about exactly this issue.

The CPSU’s lawyers wrote to Telstra HR on Friday asking that this ballot cease, on the basis that this process did not give staff “a reasonable opportunity to decide” about the agreement, as required by the Workplace Relations Act 1996.

Telstra wrote back at 10am on Monday to say that the CPSU’s claims were “without foundation”.

However, at 2.15pm Telstra appeared at the Federal Court and said they were withdrawing the agreement.  This sudden and unexpected decision seems to support the CPSU’s argument that the ECA ballot process is flawed and undemocratic.

The CPSU’s lawyer, Maurice Blackburn partner Josh Bornstein, said the case had been lodged as a test case under the Workplace Relations Act, raising the question of whether Telstra’s strategy denied employees a reasonable opportunity to decide whether to accept the offer of such an agreement.

“Even more fundamentally, the case raises questions about what is meant by a collective agreement under federal law,” he said.

“The strategy adopted by Telstra completely deprived the process of any collective input from the employees.”

Unions and their lawyers will be monitoring the situation very closely to ensure that Telstra does not seek to deploy the strategy again. 

It was regrettable that the CPSU was forced to take such action.

Everyone would prefer that Telstra comes back to the table so that we can get on with negotiating a good agreement for all Telstra staff.

BREAKING NEWS: another ECA bites the dust

Yet another non-union deal has been knocked over with staff in Wholesale Victoria voting against an ECA offer.

This is the latest in a string of defeats for HR in the last couple of weeks, and another sign that the ECA strategy is unravelling.

Well done, Wholesale Vic!

Written by TelstraUnions · Filed Under Featured news, News, Telstra HR's dodgy dealings 

Comments

Got something to say?