Telstra cuts technicians contract pay rates

More than 100 independent contractors working for Telstra as telephone technicians in regional New South Wales are facing cuts of between 25 per cent and 50 per cent to their contract pay rates. The technicians are employed as sub-contractors for Downer Engineering but carry out the majority of their work on residential and business telephone lines for Telstra. They say they cannot afford to accept most country work under the new rates and have been forced to halt rural repair work and in-place installations until their rates of pay are restored.

Telstra has recently decided to change the definition of what are rural jobs and what are urban country jobs. This has meant a cut in the rate of pay for repairing most rural telephone faults in NSW from AS$105 to AS$80 - a 24 per cent pay cut. The contract rate for telephone installations where there is an existing line has been reduced from AS$87 to AS$38 - a 56 per cent pay cut.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow said:

"These telephone technicians cannot afford to cop Telstra's pay cuts which could amount to as much as AS$25 000 less pay in a year. They already have had to cope with rapidly rising fuel costs, rising loan costs for their vans, as well as increases in insurance and materials. But under their current terms of employment they have no capacity to negotiate directly with Telstra for decent contract rates and their legal rights to bargain collectively are severely limited.

"It is wrong for Telstra to unilaterally decide on the pay rates for sub-contractors. Surely the subbies should be entitled to negotiate directly with the company they do all their work for?

"This is another example of an unfair contracting relationship in which all the risks are borne by the sub-contractor and big companies like Telstra can change their pay rates at any time."

Sharan Burrow continued:

"The Howard government is currently trying to pass a new law that will make it even easier for big businesses like Telstra to push more and more employees into sub-contracting arrangements where they miss out on award rates of pay, paid annual leave, superannuation and other basic entitlements. The government's proposed new Independent Contractors Act is currently before parliament."