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Telstra Bargaining Update #4 - 23 May 2012

The most recent negotiations between Telstra and the unions' Single Bargaining Unit (SBU) was held on Monday 21 May.

The first meeting of the Working Party which is looking at classification and pay structures was held on the previous Monday 14 May and a further meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 23 May.

Consultative arrangements

As reported in Update #3, Telstra has indicated that it would like to deal with its consultation obligations through one relatively simple clause rather than having a number of separate but possibly overlapping procedures covering major change, redundancy and performance management/pay.

Some common ground has been established but there are still issues to be agreed upon. The unions have undertaken to come back with proposed wording for clauses still in dispute.

Dispute resolution

No major changes to the current EA dispute resolution clause are being proposed but Telstra wants clarification of the procedure following a Fair Work Australian decision which found that it was not always necessary to go through all the steps laid out in the clause before taking the matter in dispute to FWA.

The unions are considering Telstra's position and are still working on the final wording of any changes.

Delegates training

While the current EA makes provision for union delegates' training leave, the amount of time allowed is very small - a maximum 3 days per employee up to a total of 90 days a year spread between the three relevant unions (CWU, CPSU and APESMA).

In practice, this means that it is hard for the unions to run effective training courses especially for smaller state branches which may end up with a very small allocation of total hours.

Discussions have now begun on this matter with the unions putting their case for enlarging the training provisions.

Work model/pay working party

The first meeting of the working party looking at the two different work models/ classification systems in Telstra and their related pay schedules was held on 14 May. At this stage the main activity of the working party is information gathering.

The role of the working party is advisory only so any future recommendations or outcomes from this group will only be reported once they have been considered by the full negotiating team.

The next negotiating meeting will be held on Thursday 31 May.

Telstra Bargaining Update #3

The CWU and other Telstra unions met with Telstra on Monday 7 May for further Enterprise Bargaining negotiations. This followed a number of preliminary discussions in March and April.

Jobs and pay structures

The discussions again covered what are essentially the core issues in these negotiations i.e. the structure of the agreement, the way in which jobs in Telstra are classified (the "work model") and the way employees are paid.

These issues are obviously all inter-related. All parties agree that they would prefer to have one single agreement with one "work model" and one pay system but there has been no discussion yet as to how this might be achieved, especially if no employee is to be left worse off under a new simplified structure.

As reported in Bargaining Update #2, a working party is to be set up to look at these issue in detail and to consider options for rationalisation of the different models currently in use in Telstra (Part A/Part B of the ECAs; Category 1/Category 2 of the EA).

Consideration is being given to whether there should be two separate groups to deal with classifications and pay, given the possibly quite detailed and practical work involved in dealing with classification issues. At this stage, however, it has been agreed that the group should meet as one.

Its first meeting is scheduled for Monday 14 May.

Other issues: consultation and dispute resolution clauses

The discussions also broke ground in two other areas where Telstra has indicated it wishes to see some modification and possible simplification of current provisions: the consultation and dispute resolution procedures.

Under the Fair Work Act all agreements must contain a consultative clause and a dispute resolution clause. However, there is some room for variation of the details.

Members will remember that the dispute resolution clause in the current Enterprise Agreement was hard won. During the years of the Howard government, there was no legal obligation on the employer to agree to take disputes to the industrial umpire, the AIRC (later Fair Work Australia), and Telstra refused to include such provisions in Enterprise Agreements.

This attitude persisted right up to the time Labor's Fair Work Act was introduced. The ECAs that were made before that time don't provide for disputes to be referred to Fair Work Australia.

Even now, the law does not explicitly require employers to agree to arbitration of disputes by Fair Work Australia - this is something Telstra employees achieved during the last EA negotiations and dispute.

Now, if the current negotiations result in one single agreement, it is agreed that this provision will be extended to all Telstra employees covered by the new EA.

Telstra, however, has some concerns about the timeframes laid down in the current process and wants agreement about how the steps in the process should be followed.

The consultation clause relates to major changes in Telstra's operations such as the introduction of new technology or multiple redundancies. Telstra has indicated it sees scope for eliminating overlaps between this provision and the current requirements for consultation over performance pay and redundancy.

The CWU will be considering this issue further as discussions on performance pay and redundancy procedures evolve.

For our part, the CWU wants to have input into the consultation process at any earlier stage than the current wording of the clause requires. As it stands, the union considers that the clause allows consultation to occur after the horse has effectively bolted - as in the case of off-shoring decisions, for instance.

These issues will be the subject of further discussion with the next full negotiating meeting scheduled for 21 May.

8 May 2012