BY MATT EGAN
& TOM FLANAGAN
LISMORE During the last five years, workers at Telstra's directory assistance call centre in Molesworth Street, Lismore, have repeatedly won recognition as the top performing call centre team in their region. One of the workers, leading hand Therese Richardson, has twice been awarded "operator of the year".
You might think that this team's outstanding performance would be rewarded. In particular, because many of these workers are employed by labour-hire company Skilled Communications, you might think that Telstra would want to give them permanent jobs. Surely it wants to be able to deliver quality service, and these people have shown that they can do it.
But, on July 4, all 70 Skilled Communications workers were told that the call centre was closing in October or November and they would no longer be required. Then on August 22, workers were told that from September 15 they would only be working eight to 12 hours a week.
Skilled is moving its operations to Maryborough and Nambour in Queensland. Until last Christmas, the centre employed 200 workers. Permanent Telstra employees who didn't accept redundancies have been transferred to a new sales centre at nearby Goonellabah. Green Left Weekly spoke to Therese Richardson about the situation.
Richardson explained that according to Telstra, there has been a downturn in calls to the directory assistance service, so less staff are required. But from her experience of customer complaints, she believes that customers can't get through to directory assistance and are instead using other, more expensive, Telstra services.
The call centre workers simultaneously provide the Telstra "call connect" service, which costs $1.10 on top of normal call costs. These calls come through the system without the several minutes of waiting often experienced by directory assistance callers. Now, not surprisingly, up to 90% of calls come through call connect lines. Some call connect callers even say that they don't want to be connected, they just want to be told the phone number, but the operator has no choice but to connect and therefore charge the caller.
Asked about the impact of its possible privatisation on Telstra management's attitude, Richardson said: "[Telstra is] just trying to sell off everything [it] can. [It is] getting rid of things that are costing money. [Telstra] owns the building, but is selling buildings to fund the rural services needed in order to [win support to] sell off the other half of Telstra.
"What are people going to use? They're entitled to directory assistance, they're not getting it. It's alright saying they'll pick up the rural services in one area, but in the process they're dropping off another service in another area.
"I've worked for Telstra for five years. When I first started working for them it was a [fully] government owned service. It was a good service. You spent time with customers and helped them in a friendly, courteous, customer-service way. Now we have to deal with customers in 18 seconds! That's since [partial] privatisation. They want to make money out of customers as quickly as possible and get them out of the system. People abuse us! We haven't got time to listen."
Richardson is scathing about her union, the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union, saying, "We've got nothing from the CEPU. They put the effort in for the [permanent Telstra staff]. We're in the same union but they've done nothing [for us]."
Although the workers went to see local National Party MP Ian Causley, they haven't heard back from him. "So I don't think he's interested", Richardson said. "But it is his community and he's got 70 people losing jobs on good wages. All that money's gone out of this community now. We're not going to go to the supermarkets, or fix our cars, with that money. Its going to affect the whole of Lismore.
"We're just trying to get someone to pay attention to what's happening. We're writing letters, speaking to newspapers, trying to get some response. It probably won't save our jobs. But what were trying to say to people is 'sit up and take notice. Watch what's happening to Telstra because you're going to lose it!' This is a service that keeps this country going, it provides a lot of income to Australia, and they're going to sell it off! How are they going to replace that income?
"The thing is, we don't know how to go about keeping the call centre open. I suppose we don't think we've got a hope in hell of doing that. But they've closed a lot of centres, a lot of them in NSW, and people have said nothing. They've just walked away. And we're saying, 'No, its not good enough'. Those rural jobs are very, very important.
"In my experience, in the city, if you look hard enough, you will find a job. But in these rural areas you can't. There's not that much opportunity. And when we get something based in a rural area you need to keep it there.
"The public still own half of Telstra. Isn't it up to them to say 'No, this is the service we want'? Telstra tells us that this is what the customers want. But the customers are on the other end of the line saying they hate it!
"Don't take what [Telstra is] telling you. They're raising all their prices again. It's got to be stopped. Big companies can't keep taking over like this and just run it the way they want to run it." A public meeting in support of the workers is being organised. Details will be announced in GLW in coming weeks.
From Green Left Weekly, August 28, 2002.
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