Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) representative Len Cooper took the microphone during the forum to point out that 35,000 job have been scrapped from Telstra ranks since June 1996.
-I want to know what the Board's position is on future employment within Telstra and are they going to continue this destructive policy?" Cooper questioned.
-We've heard the collective experience of the top 50 managers," Cooper said, alluding to the Chairman's address earlier in the meeting, in which he defended executive salaries and bonuses.
-Just imagine the collective experience that's been driven out of this company in the last six years."
Although Mansfield would not immediately address Cooper's comments, he responded to a further push by the Union later in the forum.
-The issue of job cuts throughout corporate Australia generally is a difficult issue, there's no two ways about that," Mansfield told shareholders.
-There is no way I can give any guarantee there will be no more job cuts. But what I can give you a guarantee on is there's a distinct change from headline job cuts to now looking at productivity and processing improvements, and a lot of other areas of potential improvements in Telstra, to make the progress we need to make to deliver shareholder value," he added.
-It's no easier for Telstra than it is for any other company I can assure you," Mansfield said.
Cooper fired back with the accusation that because of the -productivity and performance measuring regime" put in place in Telstra call centres, staff are in fact unable to deal properly with customer concerns. What is being done, Cooper claims, is that customers are taken out of service queues -to make the holding times and the drop out call rates look good", diverted to areas that can't help them then are put back in the original queue as a new enquires.
Telstra did not respond to this point specifically, but Mansfield said: -The simple fact is businesses have to be competitive. I think the Ansett experience certainly demonstrated that.
-Performance has never been higher in relation to what Telstra is giving to customers right now."
Cooper claims, however, that Telstra is getting rid of invaluable talent and that neither the Union nor staff believe management statements that the telco is not governing by headcount.
-It seems to us that in many areas those cuts have taken place without concern for customer service, and without respect for the impact on remaining staff," Cooper argued.
Cooper pointed out that at the Telstra Research Laboratories (TRL) there are two remaining experts in the impact of high speed data services on various cable systems about to be made redundant in the next few weeks. Another example, he said, is that at TRL research and development costs have been cut by over 50 percent in the last few years.
-You talked about network integrity. In the Global Operations Centre in Clayton, which has been desperately short of staff ever since it opened, it currently has thousands of faults in the fault queues not being dealt with by staff because of short staffing and lack of training and you are currently embarking on a redundancy program," Cooper said. -Our view is that there needs to be a drastic change of direction from the top."
Telstra did not address the specifics mentioned by Cooper but Mansfield said in response to his comment about 35,000 layoffs: -If you and I had a chat, I'm pretty sure you'd say of the 35,000 that went we should have kept the vast majority of them. I'd hate to think what our share price would be had we done that."
Telstra CEO Ziggy Switkowski brought the debate about job cuts to a close by saying: -I share with you your concern...There is no doubt that for a number of years, as we tried to get the company's resources in line, that the focus was on headcount. While headcount is still important, the focus is now on ensuring that we understand how work is done in Telstra, so that we can better serve customers," he said.
-External audits of our service and moral reinforces the notion that we are on the right track."
Spot-on, Mr Cooper !