News

Telstra workers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action over the company’s ongoing refusal to negotiate a collective agreement with its employees. A secret ballot of nearly 4,400 workers was conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission and closed yesterday. Significantly, 77 per cent of those members cast a vote in the ballot.

After the ballot was counted, it became clear workers agreed to commence industrial action against Telstra with a massive 90.3 per cent voting. The overwhelming response shows that Telstra workers are fed up how they’re being treated.



The CEPU, CPSU and APESMA repeatedly tried to negotiate with Telstra in good faith, but the company rejected all our requests to get back to the bargaining table.



While Telstra’s CEO secures a $13.4m pay packet with little fuss, Telstra workers on $60,000 a year have had to struggle to get a fair agreement.  That’s not right or fair. And just as bad, Telstra is rolling out individual non-union agreements that might cover 20 employees at a time – the process of securing wage agreements in Australia’s fourth largest company has become ridiculous.



The CEPU will now organise which form of industrial action workers will take against Telstra, including:

• An unlimited number of four hour (4), twenty-four (24) and forty-eight (48) hour  rolling stoppages of work;
  
• An unlimited number of indefinite or periodic bans on overtime (paid and unpaid), recalls/call backs, performing higher duties and not attending management meetings; and/or
  
• An unlimited number of indefinite stoppages at work.

Any industrial action will be squarely aimed at Telstra, not its customers and the union will ensure our members will be available to assist with emergency calls and vital services to rural and regional parts of the country, during any prolonged strike action. The union would’ve liked to reach agreement with Telstra, but our members are being forced to fight for their wages, jobs and conditions.