Telstra's main union has signalled that this weekend could see further industrial action dog the telco if enough employees have come back from their Christmas break.
(Credit: On Strike by Seth Anderson, CC2.0)
Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union national president Ed Husic told ZDNet.com.au today that the union was currently working out how many people were back on the job, to see whether it made sense to start action again this weekend with overtime bans.
The strike, which began last month in the hope of achieving a new union-negotiated employment agreement, had involved bans on overtime and callbacks as well as 24- and 48-hour stoppages. However, the union did not continue the action into the Christmas period, with Husic saying that it would have adversely affected Australian families who were trying to reach each other over the holiday.
"There was no way that we'd take industrial action which has an effect on how people keep in contact with each other," Husic said. "I don't see it as a step down, it's just an expression on the time of year."
The coming weeks will see the action ramp up again, he said, although no definite plans had been made as yet. The union would make an announcement in the next 24 hours as to new action, he said.
The action taken before the holiday had already had an effect on Telstra's business processes, Husic believed, adding a week to the company's fault repair schedule. As yet, there has been no word from Telstra, he said.
Telstra was unable to provide comment at the time of publication.
On one hand we have workers putting their hands out for an across-the-board payrise where improvements to efficiency have not been discussed - though I concede that there can not be a serious approach to the toucy subject of efficiency when collective bargaining takes place. On the other hand we have Telstra who makes fat profits each year and pay higher dividends to shareholders than most other companies and can also seem to find the money to pay megadollar salaries to the Amigos. I'm not exactly pro-union so in this rare instance I am on Telstra's side as far as this pay dispute goes but they could certainly have handled things a lot better. Then again, if the workers get too greedy it will just be throwing petrol on the campfire - it will give Sol another excuse for extra rounds of retrenchments.