The Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) was granted a hearing at the IRC yesterday, at which it hoped the country's second largest telco would reveal its recent retrenchment criteria of 561 workers.
-We haven't been able to resolve anything yet," CEPU organiser Mark Brownlow told ZDNet Australia. -We're back in the Commission at 11am this morning."
The Commission gave Optus overnight to think about specific examples where the Union claims dismissals were unfair. The Union is asking to be told why particular individuals were targeted for retrenchment when a whole line of other employees were doing similar work.
"Our members are concerned that they don't have any idea if Optus's decision was fair and objective," Brownlow said.
Brownlow said -it remains to be seen" whether or not Optus brings a satisfactory response to the table today, adding that the Union believed the telco was dragging out the procedure in light of the fact that staff terminations are effective as of tomorrow.
However if the matter isn't resolved before retrenchments commence, the Union says it will seek orders of unfair dismissal at the IRC, a procedure that will be more time consuming and expensive for all involved.
