Telstra coy on job cuts
Telco won’t reveal impact on Queensland
TELSTRA has refused to reveal how many of its 8000 job cuts will come from the Far North after announcing plans to split the company in two.
The telco’s share prices plummeted yesterday after its CEO Andy Penn outlined a plan to “greatly simplify our structure” and separate the infrastructure business from retail operations.
He said 8000 jobs would be slashed over three years including “removing one in four executive and middle management roles”.
A Telstra spokeswoman said there would be no bias between metropolitan and regional areas when the axe came down, nor between onshore and offshore positions.
Cairns MP Michael Healy urged Telstra to release the details as soon as possible.
“I don’t know what has been done internally but for Telstra to make this announcement and not identify where the cuts will be happening, I think that would be intimidating an entire workforce,” he said.
“Telstra spends a lot of money telling everyone what a great job they do and what a community-minded organisation they are. “We’re not seeing that. “They need to give people ample time to start preparing for potential transitions, particularly in regional areas where those job opportunities are fewer.”
Mr Healy urged Telstra to reconsider the cuts, but failing that he said it must retrain sacked staff so they had the skills to find new jobs.
“These sorts of decisions by huge multinationals enormous capacity to families apart,” he said.
“Just dropping people morally inappropriate.
“They will be judged on how they treat these 8000 workers that lose their jobs.”
State opposition leader Deb Frecklington wrote to Mr Penn seeking a guarantee that no jobs would be lost in Queensland. have tear is
“Queensland is Australia’s most decentralised state, reliable communications is critical,” she wrote.
“There have been a number of recent service failures by Telstra impacting Queenslanders.
“Reliability won’t be improved unless jobs in Queensland are protected.”
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