
Issue No 98		01 June 2001

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

News

Workers Tell Jodie: It's a Bit Rich

By Jim Marr

Workers and unions are targetting fallen business page glamour boys, Brad Keeling and Jodee Rich, along with industry player, Optus, in a bid to save workers entitlements in the wake of One.Tel's failure.

With 1400 workers uncertain about wages, super and holiday pay, the CPSU's Wendy Caird has called on business to shoulder its responsibilities.

Caird points out that multi-millionaire One.Tel founders, Rich and Keeling, had paid themselves $7 million each in bonuses just months before their operation struck trouble.

"Those bonuses came on top of $500,000 salaries," Ms Caird explained, "alone, they would cover the money owed to 1400 people who have been left in the lurch."

Caird insists the demand was no stunt, arguing it was high-time that business accepted "moral and ethical responsibilites as well as legal ones". NSW Premier Bob Carr and Treasurer Peter Cotello today.

The principle, she said, should be extended to Optus who worsened One.Tel's position by giving customers seven days to transfer accounts if they wanted to retain existing phones and numbers.

Caird says the commercial advantage of taking the ailing telco's business should be balanced by accepting liability for its staff.

She made her claims after the union met One.Tel staff in offices around Australia and representatives of administrators, Ferrier Hodgson, late last Thursday.

The administrator was unable to give assurances about holiday pay or superannuation entitlements.

Caird says One.Tel's failure high-lighted the short-sightedness of Government competition policy based around under-cutting pay and conditions.

Since the part-privatisation of Telstra, telecommunications companies have used the Workplace Relations Act to slash wages and conditions, and try to and keep unions out of their workplaces.

The CPSU's communications section has retaliated by signing up hundreds of workers and pushing for a benchmark industry award.

"Last week it was Vodafone lay-offs, this week One.Tel looks like going out of business. It is becoming increasingly clear that unions are as important in telecommunications as anywhere else," Caird says.

"The industry will not stabilise until workers have a meaningful say in what is happening.

"These events have only increased our determination to win a binding award so that companies focus on business practises and customer service, rather than attacking workers for their competitive edge."

E-mail your support to One.Tel workers at mailto:[email protected]

   Visit the CPSU

  View entire issue - print all of the articles!

  Issue 98 contents

Interview: Balancing the Books
Opposition Finance spokesman Lindsay Tanner on bringing a Labor agenda to managing the nation�s finances.

Compo: Undampened Spirits
Despite atrocious weather, building workers took to the streets this work over the carnage in their workplace. Mark Hebblewhite was there.

Unions: Giving Blood
Local government workers are mounting a campaign to have leave to give blood donations recognised in their award.

Women: A Checklist for Women Voters
With a mountain of demands on Australian working women, the biggest question could well be which is the biggest?

History: May Day Meditation
May Day has been and gone, but we thought Peter Linebaugh�s take on its meaning was worth reading on all the other days too.

International: The Weeks of Living Dangerously
The now almost inevitable fall of Indonesia�s President Abdurrahman Wahid could have drastic consequences for the increasingly militant working class movement in that country.

Economics: No More Mr Nice Guy
In his new book, Steven Keen outlines why the public needs to know that economics is intellectually unsound.

Satire: NZ to be Disbanded
Following the successful disbanding of the armed forces the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, has unveiled a new bold plan to total disband the entire nation.

Review: Action in the House
Workers Online�s Big Brother Addict argues the time has come for the contestant�s to take some industrial action.

» Twenty Grand � The Cost of a Life in 2001

» Compo Protest Virtually Ignored

» Workers Tell Jodie: It's a Bit Rich

» Disbelief at Dubai in the Sky

» Wage Rise For Two Million Workers

» Casuals Win Parental Leave Rights

» Egan Budget Welcomed � But Social Audit Still on Agenda

» Bad Rosters �Like Being Drunk�

» Nurses Act on Ward Rage

» Council Workers Brace for Border Skirmish

» Meatworkers Win in Federal Court

» Hotel Bosses Linked to Tobacco Industry

» Workers Demand Treaty With Indigenous Australia

» Activists Notebook