By Leo Wellin
Around the country, Community and Public Service Union members in Telstra are being asked to vote on a draft competency-based pay and training (CBP&T) agreement which unashamedly aims to deliver "commercial outcomes of improved customer satisfaction, improved productivity, increased revenues and improved operating performance" within the next two years.
The agreement, drafted jointly by the CPSU and management, aims to replace the current administrative officer structure and affects more than 3000 customer service representatives (CSRs) working mainly in the call answering, sales and service order processing areas.
Telstra CSRs are currently entitled to annual wage increases and on-the-job training in areas such as product knowledge, phone manner, computing systems and customer disputes. Under the new structure, wage increases are no longer guaranteed and will instead be linked to performance assessments in areas such as product sales, talk-time and team work skills.
Training will be based on systematic harassment by supervisors, known as "team leaders", who will have monthly "coaching" sessions with CSRs to improve their performance. Already, a "voluntary" system of supervisors listening in to calls is in place. If individual CSRs object, they are "coached" on their objections.
To be assessed for a wage rise under the competency structure, CSRs will have to demonstrate not only administrative skills but other aptitudes, such as being adaptable to change and contributing to the development of team work. However, management have admitted that even meeting competency criteria does not guarantee that a position with a higher salary level will be available for the CSR. The effect of this will be a trained work force working for less than they would normally be entitled to.
Customer service centres currently handle more than 20 million calls a year. The CBP&T agreement sets staffing at 80% to meet forecast workloads. CSRs are expected to meet performance objectives while the service is understaffed. This is a crucial point — instead of employing more staff the aim is to make existing staff work harder.
The CPSU developed the CBP&T model within the framework of the "Participative Approach" — an agreement made in March 1994 between unions and Telstra management which committed both parties to reduce industrial disputation and pursue Telstra's business priorities.
The effect of this "consultative" approach is to bury opposition to management proposals in joint working parties, focus groups and national steering committees. The CBP&T was developed after four years of such collaboration and has been unanimously endorsed by the CPSU telecommunications section executive. The absence of any reference to the needs of workers in this agreement exposes the CPSU leadership as cops of economic rationalism in the workplace.