TELSTRA EBA HOOK-UP
Next Meeting Wednesday 31 July 7.15 pm to 8.00 pm. Meeting ID is 131300978
+ Simply dial in: 02 8015 2088 and enter the Meeting ID
+ Use your phone app (Download app "ZOOM") and enter the Meeting ID
+ Click this link: https://zoom.us/j/131300978

RETIRED MEMBERS ASSOCIATION
The CWU Retired Members Association (RMA) was formed by retired members of the ATEA a union that represented Technical workers in the Telecom and Postal areas of the PMG. With Industry deregulation and Union amalgamations the Branch now covers Communications Technical workers throughout the industry. RMA has about 900 members. RMA publishes a monthly newsletter to all members. Membership is available to unionists made redundant, out on invalidity, as well as early retirees. At present a payment of $20 pays you up for life. See RMA Web Page

TELSTRA EBA UPDATE.
The Unions and bargaining reps are due to meet with Telstra again on Wed 31 July. The two main outstanding items will be the proposed cl 45 and any pay increase. Clause 45 clearly has the possibility of being "make or break" for the EBA, given Telstra's insistence on having this clause. The Union is seeking high level legal advice on the clause prior to the meeting.

GBS NEWS - CELEBRATES LOSS OF AUSSIE JOBS
From Telstra: This is a momentous fortnight . in India, in the last fortnight we have welcomed 100 new colleagues into the ICC. We hit two key benchmarks in our scaling efforts: hired 50 people in a month and on-boarded 50 people in a day. The challenge now is to scale this further while becoming more efficient, faster and innovative. The ICC continues to engage with the business functions to look at our Innovation, Process Improvement and Automation pipeline and the results are encouraging - we have a significant target in FY20 to accomplish together. It was great to have David Burns and members of the GBS and Networks & IT Leadership Team join us in Bangalore. The ICC opens in India - Did you see the corporate news story on the recent opening and Pooja Ceremony. Read the full story here

GOVERNMENT'S LATEST ATTACK ON WORKERS AND OUR UNION
The first order of business for the Morrison Government has been to try and push through legislation that will roll-back the basic rights of working people instead of tackling near record low wage growth and a struggling economy. They turn a blind eye to millions of dollars lost to workers through wage theft and instead attack workers and our unions.
During the election campaign the Morrison Government insisted that it had no plans to reduce workers' rights. Now, Morrison has drawn from the wish lists of big business to attack working people's freedom to organise.
The rights of workers to organise, and for members to democratically run their unions is an internationally recognised human right, like a free press. Free unions are essential checks on the powerful in any democracy. Every single worker benefits from the work of unions, attacking unions is another way of attacking every worker's rights.
The Australian union movement is already heavily regulated and the Bill goes further than any other western democracy in interfering in democratic workers organisations.
The Bill would give the Government, employers, or any other party with `sufficient interest' the power to intervene in the running and work of unions, disqualify people from union leadership, block union mergers, and more easily deregister unions.
It would also allow a Federal Court to disqualify a person from holding office in a union on a wide range of grounds, including that a person is not a `fit and proper person' - so, for example, if they had twice been caught driving without a license.
And of course, the bill does not apply to corporations or other types of elected officials like politicians.
Despite the numerous scandals in banking, aged care and corporations that has seen money stolen, elderly people without enough food, wage theft and fraud, no one in any of those scandals has been barred from holding office nor has a single organization been de-registered. It must be stopped.

CEO PENN COSTED, THEN REJECTED, CALL CENTRE REPATRIATION
Extracts from itnews - Simon Sharwood on Jul 25: Telstra ran the numbers on bringing all of its call centres back to Australia, and decided against it on grounds of cost and complexity. The carrier's CEO Andrew Penn yesterday revealed the investigation was "one of the first things [he] did" after being named Telstra's leader in 2015. Penn's remarks were made while speaking to Sydney shock jock Ray Hadley, who opined that offshore call centres worsen customer service and asked where Telstra's are currently located. Penn said Telstra's offshore centres are "predominantly" in the Philippines, with others in India. "The dynamic is that if we are connecting 4000 homes a day to the NBN... one person can't deal with all that" he said. Penn extrapolated that number to over 100,000 Telstra NBN signups each month, a figure that means the carrier is winning massive market share. The interview also saw Penn defend NBN Co and its work to improve the interface between the wholesaler, retail service providers and consumers, and defend Telstra's efforts to improve service. See IT News Story"