Within two weeks of the federal elections, workers were told of brutal staff cuts planned for Telstra, which the Coalition intends to privatise. JENNIFER THOMPSON spoke to COLIN COOPER, national president of the Communications Division of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union about the campaign against Telstra's privatisation.
Question: What does the union respond to Howard saying that he has a mandate now to privatise Telstra?
We don't believe that he has a mandate. Two indications of that are the high vote for the Democrats because they would not agree to the privatisation of Telstra, and the opinion polls indicate 70% of people don't support the privatisation of Telstra.
The election was lost by the Labor government on a whole number of issues, and not won on privatisation. The Labor Party lost a lot of its traditional support because of its pro-privatisation policy — of Qantas, Australian Airlines, the Commonwealth Bank. The vote against Labor was a vote against privatisation in a lot of its heartland areas.
Question: Given Howard's hope of pushing the sale through with the support of Green senators, has the union contacted Green groups?
Some of our people have been talking to the various senators and potential senators. Our position is that [the $1 billion environment package funded by the Telstra sale] is a very short-term strategy.
We're saying if the government is fair dinkum, they should link the dividends of Telstra to an ongoing commitment to the environment. Over the years that would net a lot more than $1 billion. That way the environment is fixed and Telstra remains in public hands for all the good reasons it should remain in public hands.
Question: What about other community groups? The Australian Telecommunications Users Group is always quoted in favour of privatisation.
ATUG is a business lobby group that's against public ownership and supports more deregulation. It has some positions that are pro-Telstra because they realise what will happen to Australian businesses if [Telstra has] large overseas ownership. Their positions are inconsistent — they are trying to privatise Telstra without overseas ownership and control, and that's impossible.
Community groups, as usual, don't get much say in what goes on. Most people, though, don't support the privatisation of Telstra and will overwhelmingly support the union campaign. We've been fighting this for 20 years, and we've always found good support, particularly in country areas, because they know exactly what's going to happen.
Question: Are you campaigning around the Information Technology Group in Telstra, which Labor was looking at privatising by sending it into a joint venture with IBM/LendLease?
That issue is a bit more complex. We've been looking at that very carefully and haven't decided our final position. It depends on the arrangements that Telstra enters into with the ISSC group. If Telstra is expanding its business into other areas that it's not traditionally in now, and ISSC is not taking over Telstra's core business or heartland, like its network, we'd probably be more relaxed about the arrangement. But the final agreement and arrangements aren't decided so we're reserving our judgment.
Question: There have been a large number of jobs cut in Telstra, but if it was even partially privatised, would there be a large number of job losses immediately?
One of the immediate things is the potential job loss. Telstra numbers have built back up again over the last two years, as they found when they made whole numbers of people redundant, they couldn't provide the service. I think Telstra is up to about 77,000 again.
Privatisation is about reducing the staff. Job cuts will be a big issue, as a lot of Telstra's work in done inside — like installing all the telephone exchanges. Traditionally we've been able to fight off outsourcing and contractors.
Obviously that will be one of the first areas to try to reduce staff numbers. The contradiction they'll have is that contractors traditionally have done this work at a very low standard. In the early '70s there were enormous technical problems with contractors, but that won't stop them trying.
We expect with a fully privatised Telstra possibly half the current numbers of staff. That's based on what happened in New Zealand and Britain. Telstra management will also try to undermine the current redundancy agreement, which makes compulsory redundancy difficult and pays, on community standards, a very good separation arrangement.
Question: What is the union's feeling about the government's plan — first Labor and now Liberal — to open telecommunications to full private sector competition in 1997?
The 1997 Telecommunications Act has to be put into place, but we're not expecting that the Liberal government will make much change to the direction of the Labor Party. That was to remove some current regulation on Telstra and leave it to operate more freely. That was a good thing in a public enterprise. Telstra had too many restrictions on it, and in 1997 could have benefited from some of the changes.
If Telstra is privatised, it's an area where the Coalition's going to have a conflict. They'll be trying to look after Telstra, which will want absolutely no restriction on it. Telstra's competitors support the Coalition but want all the restrictions in the world on Telstra.
The Coalition has said it will protect the social charter and some of the social commitments of Telstra. Frankly, a privatised Telstra is not going to do it.
In the 1997 changes to the regulations, we'll see how they're going to direct this new privatised company to put into place some of the promises. We don't believe it will happen; it can't happen economically: a privatised Telstra can't have anything like the social responsibilities the current Telstra has.
Question: One of business pundits writing about the issue before the election said that there should be no community service obligations on Telstra, but that the government should meet them out of its own budget. This seems fairly tenuous in the current fiscal climate.
It was admitted that means taxpayers money will go to a private company. That's the reverse of what's happening at the moment; Telstra is providing dividends to the government, reducing taxes. Under a privatised Telstra, we will be subsidising a private company. We say, why don't you just send the cheque straight overseas and save the middle person?
Question: How is the CEPU planning to campaign against the privatisation?
We intend to continue the campaign we started during the elections. The information we put forward in that campaign is still very relevant; the consequences to the Australian community of a privatised Telstra remain. It is a public and community issue.
Now that the government seems to be hell-bent on trying to get essential legislation through the Senate in the next session, before the new senators take up, we have to move our campaign a lot faster.
We're also predicting a great deal of industrial stresses in Telstra, as soon as they try to cut jobs. If there are massive attacks on conditions of the people in Telstra, anything's possible. We're not counting anything out as far as activities to protect Telstra as a public company and the conditions of the people in it.
Question: What indications have there been from other unions about how they can support the CEPU campaign?
The ACTU is meeting, and we will try to get their support. The CEPU now covers the electricians and the plumbers, so it's a fairly big union on its own — we don't anticipate anything other than full support from the national union, and we anticipate full support in the ACTU.
We're also expecting problems in Australia Post as they move to deregulate the current monopoly. That's going to affect country people enormously.