Telstra cut another 200 call centre jobs

Telstra cut another 200 call centre jobs

Telstra has announced they are cutting another 200 call centre jobs for the second time in just a month, as their Global Contact Centre Group announced further voluntary redundancies.

Telstra formally notified the Communications Workers Union of the decision but stressed that “offshoring of jobs is not part of this proposal”.

For example, in 2013 it was revealed that more than 10,000 overseas contractors were working for Telstra when the company was cutting jobs at home to help boost profit.

This represented about 26% of Telstra’s then full-time workforce of 38,000. Furthermore, just a month ago, 34 jobs were offshored from Tasmania.

Telstra told the CWU that its view of the future of the GCC business involves retention of a critical mass of customer support workers in Australia.

The focus of the current move is rather on “increasing the productivity of its Australian operations – while at the same time boosting customer satisfaction levels”, a CWU statement says.

The union said: “This is the old mantra of doing more with less which usually means increased pressure on employment standards in such forms as ever-higher performance targets, unpaid overtime and reduction of rest breaks.”

While voluntary redundancies are preferred to forced cuts, the CWU voiced concern that the downsizing of the GCC group will mean increased workloads for those staff that remain.

The CWU said it expects a further meeting with Telstra on the GCC proposal this week. It suggests that members wanting advice on the voluntary redundancy offer should contact their state branch.

Common sense would suggest that the reason they won’t be offshoring any more call centre jobs is because they have already moved most of them over there!

Further, if additional volumes do require additional headcount then the recruitment will be done locally in the Philippines, well away from any union issues in Australia…

Recommended further reading: Why Australia call centre jobs are being moved overseas 

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