By Leo Wellin
Telstra's announcement of a $3 billion profit in the last financial year helped galvanise staff support for a strike on August 28.
The strike was called by the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) and the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) in response to Telstra's intransigence during enterprise agreement negotiations. This is the second major strike during the 13-month negotiations.
There was a high level of participation by members of both unions in the strike. Many members saw that a combined union strike was the most effective means of struggle. Previously, the CPSU called stoppages by office-based staff, but the field work force (covered by CEPU) carried on work as usual.
Over the past year, poorly supported rolling stoppages and failed "community awareness" campaigns have demoralised many union members as they watched Telstra implement anti-worker policies with no serious union resistance.
Since enterprise agreement negotiations began in July last year, Telstra has institutionalised programs of individual harassment, such as remote call monitoring where centre managers randomly monitor conversations in call centres for "coaching and training" purposes.
A new "employee conduct process" amounting to "three strikes and you're out", with no mechanisms for appeal, has been introduced and 25,000 staff have been sacked under the quaintly named "resource re-balancing" process.
In the most recent "negotiations", Telstra announced plans to abolish annual pay increments (equivalent to a 3-6% pay rise each year) and put all new staff and team leaders on individual contracts. The promised rises of 4% in the first year of the agreement and another 4% in the second year remain conditional on staff accepting unspecified work force restructuring.
Seven hundred staff working in the network operations centre have been told that if they want to keep their jobs they must move to Melbourne. Many were forced to move three years ago when operations were rationalised. Telstra says it has the right to demand this because it has made a "business decision" and that the Industrial Relations Commission has no right to determine what is fair for the employees concerned.
To explain the $3 billion profit, management issued a circular to staff to help them field enquiries from the public. With a straight face, management stated that the 17% increase in profits was because "we are a leaner organisation, we make decisions faster and we compete effectively".
Planning for more strike action by the CEPU and CPSU is underway. Rank and file activists are pushing for joint national mass meetings to report back on the campaign.
Kerry Vernon reports from Newcastle that CEPU members at Telstra overwhelming supported a week-long campaign of rolling stoppages after talks with management made no progress. CPSU members in Telstra in Newcastle went on strike for 24 hours from midnight on August 27.
Maritime Union members marched to a rally at the Newcastle Telstra building on August 28 in support of the Telstra workers.