Ref: SLD 09/460
14 December 2009
CEPU (Communications Electrical Plumbing Union)
Communications Division representing Telstra,
Australia Post, Optus and other communications
sector employees.
CEPU Communications Division, Telecommunications and Services Branch, Victoria, 1st Floor,
139 Queensberry Street, Carlton South VIC 3053 Ph: 03 9349 4411 Fax: 03 9349 3488
E-mail: cdtsvic@victs.cepu.asn.au Website: www.cepuconnects.org and www.cepu.net.au
TELSTRA TRIES TO CHALLENGE WORKERS RIGHT TO STRIKE
Telstra workers right throughout Australia are taking strike action once again. They
are banning overtime and emergency re calls and they are walking out of their
workplaces and work areas for indefinite periods to win an acceptable wage
increase.
The Telstra workers actions are impacting the maintenance and installation of
corporate IP Networks, data and telephone services (including ADSL), they are
causing delays in the restoration of interstate and intrastate transmission networks
and systems, mobile base stations and EFTPOS services, they are impacting the
fault restoration for third party carriers and internet service providers, they are costing
Telstra a fortune in mitigation actions against the strikes, including overtime
payments.
Telstra has applied to Fair Work Australia to try to have the Telstra workers strike and
other industrial action declared illegal, on the grounds that the forms of action are
making it difficult for the management to take defensive actions to mitigate the impact
of the action.
Telstra management has denied Telstra workers the right to take their grievances to
the industrial relations commission for years and now they are rushing off to the
commission, (Fair Work Australia), in the hope of getting themselves out of trouble.
"Rather than spend shareholders time and money on legal manoeuvres, Telstra
management should give their unionised workers a decent pay offer to settle the
dispute, and then the strike action and this long running dispute would stop," says
Len Cooper Victorian Secretary of the Communications Union (CEPU).
Authorised by and further enquiries to:
LEN COOPER
National President
Communications Division
Branch Secretary
Communications Union (CEPU)
M. 0438 389 302
Ahs: 9330 2668
MEDIA RELEASE
NEWS 
