Reliable sources say that Northland National MP John Carter has personally told telco workers given an ultimatum to sign up to Visionstream as dependent contractors not to sign the contract.
Meeting with telco techs last week in his electorate, Mr Carter was apparently very concerned about their situation, and told them they’d be fools to sign the contract and would be broke with 12 months.
He allegedly said “this model is not in the interest of New Zealand, nor in your interests too (the telco techs)”.
He also pledged to take up the issue with Steven Joyce, the Minister responsible for telecommunications. I wonder whether he’s done that.
Now John Carter is an MP who’s obviously sympathetic to his constituents. But if he’s saying to them “don’t sign the contract with Visionstream” that’s another matter. What conversations are taking place within the government right now and with whom? Did any conversations take place this weekend with Mr Key while he was in Australia?
There’s plenty of evidence from Australia that the dependent contractor model is bad news for the workforce generally.
And is it true that Chorus is widely viewed as not handling this issue well?
Telecom has acknowledged that some customers may be affected. Orcon has issued a service warning to that effect.
Telecommunication workers are striking acrosss the country today. There is enormous momentum building in this industry.
As Trevor Mallard and I said in the open letter to Telecom Chair Wayne Boyd last week:
“We do not believe that Telecom customers, effectively most of New Zealand’s citizens, will be well served by Chorus allowing its employees to become dependent contractors.
“New Zealanders, will not, and should not, put up with poor service and system faults that are not quickly fixed. If alternatives exist, people will go looking for them.”
Leaving aside all the issues around the effect of the dependent contractor model on the individual worker’s inability to make a decent living; the effect on NZ’s skilled workforce by those who leave the industry; and the fact that it appears Visionstream is going to try and extract the same amount of work from less people and make them work harder and longer for less money overall (that’s what they call productivity).
Leaving aside all those issues; just what signals does this dispute send as the government is about to release (hopefully) its intentions around rolling out ultrafast broadband across much of the country. It’s seriously not a good look.
Update: JohnKey is reported in the Dom Post this morning as saying more money will be put into rural broadband, responding to the fierce criticism coming from the rural and provincial sector about the inequities in its urban-focussed broadband rollout. Which makes it much more likely that Telecom will be part of that delivery, given its reach acrosss the country.
Which makes one ask, is this a good time for the eyes of the country to be focussing on how Telecom treats its workers, whether it can deliver adequate, let alone quality, services and whether it will have a workforce at all to roll out broadband?
I don’t know how this model will get telecom out of the era, they just stick to their old line it is between visionstream and their contractors. that’s what they said when we were fighting to get the collective with downers. but both telecom and downers have different attitudes then they did 3 years ago.
It has been out there for a long time that a third company would be introduced after transfield almost failed and telecom would have been stuck with just downers. I never expexcted to see anything like visionstream.
The closest think I have to a business card is a pile of 0800 fix cards in the van door, oh and a couple of those “There’s a new van in town” booklets
I already do all types of faults from adsl to cable, bus, res, pcm, minor build and installs. Most of the fault staff in northland are multi skilled. For faults and minor build the test gear is the same. A dynatel 695 and a locator will cover most work.
@cable guy
Mate, your child like belief that telecom /chorus/visionstream will NOT allow you to fail is very touching but extremely naive.You need to get in touch & stay in touch with the real world out there.Bad people/company’s do exist!
Now…If they really believed that anybody would succeed with this model,then can you explain why their contract had to be written in such a way that they are 100% absolved of any and all liability in the event of your failure?
I refer you to clause 2.1b for that little mention written in the contract.
namely:
2.1 This Contract records the agreement of the Parties to the matters set out in it and:
(b) does not;
(i) require the Company to issue any Purchase Orders to the
Contractor;
(ii) guarantee the Contractor any minimum amount of Services;
(iii) have any effect on the Company’s ability to use other contractors to provide Services similar to or the same as the Services,and the Company will not be liable to the Contractor in respect of any of these matters.
And of course WHEN you fail not IF you fail……you cannot refer them to their pre contract negotiations promises in your one on one either because of another little clause included in the contract that protects them..namely clause No 18: which states:
18 Information provided by the Company
The Company does not warrant, guarantee or make any representation as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy for the purposes of the Contract of any information provided by the Company prior to the date of the Contract Pre-Contract
Information) and the Company will not be liable to the Contractor in connection with the Pre-Contract Information, the provision of the Pre-Contract Information or the nonprovisions of any other information by the Company.
@cable guy…This is only 2 of the many risks (over 30)that the barrister identified in the contract.
So cable guy..you need to forget about what work you think you can accomplish in this model and the amount of money you think you can make with their continually changing rates and rather cast your attention soley upon the very important contract first. That is common sense.
visionstream do not want to speak about the many important clauses that protect them and not you, they instead tempt you with more money all the time to feed the greed and keep your attention off the contract.
Download the barristers report from the epmu site and read it thoroughly. If you have any questions regarding then you can call them direct.
visionstream WILL instead advise you to ignore the barristers report and sign up to make a fortune.Even the australian contractors who have been fighting them for 10 yrs now are warning us about them. we have a letter from them to prove this.
You will only have yourself to blame in the end when you fail if none of this truth convinces you otherwise.
Protect your family and don’t be fooled by these crooks.
sincerely yours
Not quite the same issue but rather Transfield Services’ intention to lay off about 140 workers nationwide in about two weeks…Here in ChCh, they recently brought in a lot of Phillipino workers..Are these people going to be first off??? I doubt it. Most of them joined the union and they are possibly being paid less than local ChCh workers.
@theresaj
Hmmm… thats very interesting. I am confused about how they can lay off so many existing workers nationwide and bring in more workers from the outside.Is your info reliable about the workers brought in?
One would expect them to first offer those being laid off the opportunity to relocate to areas needing more workers before bringing in outside workers dont you think?
I am currently very suspicious about these other telco company’s in NZ strange behaviour since visionstream arrived.
very suspicious indeed…
It’s pretty obvious the staff going are the staff in the patches that have been lost or if they are culling staff in existing patches, they are taking the oppertunity to get rid of the “less productive” staff. I don’t like it but thats what business’s do in times of recession or when contracts are won or lost.
It happens every 3 years in the roading industy. The contracts for transit and council maintanence shuffles between transfield, works and fulton hogan and the staff are just passed around. the good workers are kept and the rest are managed out. It used to happen every 5 years with us, The only difference now is the addition of Visionstream.
cable guy…
micheal kerikeri gives sound advice…it seems your motives may be from the company PR department…
Personally I think my almost deceised cat could do a better job at PR than whoever is doing it for visionstram!
Telecom’s history is full of examples where they have been less than complete in their disclosure of the truth.Does anyone remember Teresa Gatting’s remark “on some level the NZ public know we haven’t been straight with them…” ?
They have chosen litigation as the default to preserve their monopoly status, and shown some very questionable ethics and behaviors around the locating of competitor’s kit in their exchanges.
Within this corporate culture is it any surprise that they are applying the same approach in this case?Don’t trust ‘em.
@ Micheal and Theresaj Transfield services in the Waikato are laying off 32 field staff, 5 patch managers, 3 design and build and 2 admin staff. They will be advised next Friday who is to go. 2008 – 2009 they employed several Filipino techs directly from a marketing exercise they had going in the Philippines. The majority are unionised,although they have been quietly told if they want to keep their jobs to resign from the union. It will be interesting to see what unfolds in the next week as to who stays and goes and also to see if they are perhaps offered positions with Visionstream?
I agree, it has become very suspicious behaviour since Visionstream has been introduced.
To summarise the last 3 months activity:
1)visionstream enters the market at telecoms invitation and 900 workers refuse to sign.
2) Downer wants to introduce the same model to affected staff in their newly won area and nobody accepts the new model & also refuse to sign up.
Given: Immigration wont allow these staff shortages to be filled with new imported workers from overseas while striking workers are present and available.
3)Transfield suddenly announces possible redundancies in their areas due to being “over staffed” they claim. “although they(workers) have been quietly told if they want to keep their jobs to resign from the union” Is that legal to hold a gun to some ones head in this manner?
Looks like a contingency plan is being put into play to solve the problem within the law.
Could it be that …(They have chosen litigation as the default to preserve their monopoly status,) as one commenter puts it very nicely?
Within this corporate culture is it any surprise ?
is government still going to standby and watch this unfold?
Is this how future elections will become a “non event” because the electorate has learnt ALL politicians only care about you during an election to save their own jobs and 6 figure incomes? There after your problem is not the governments problem to resolve until the next election?
THE ELECTORATE HAS A LONG MEMORY…
I have just heard on the news that faults have a 3 week wait!
The techs are now being put under pressure to sign with Visionstream by Friday or down the road.
@another wife.
3 week wait for fault repair?…that cannot be! according to national minister steven joyce, faults have a way of automatically resolving themselves.lol
The threats are just a barking dog that cannot afford to bite.
If they fire anybody that refuses to sign by friday, telecom is still obligated to fulfill its customer commitments and with nobody available to do that should they fire anybody, they are stuck. The dog can only bark and not bite.
I would just ignore their threats. we are all they’ve got.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/telecom-we-re-celebrating-visionstream-contractors-set-start-west-north-auckland-109542
Michael and Another wife..
The visionstream thing and the Transfield layoffs are two separate things. Just heard today 30/8 that announcements will be made this Friday regarding Transfield layoffs…4 Sept. This is sooner than anticipated. I did hear awhile ago that the Waikato region will be the worst hit. Interesting Another Wife that the Phillipinos were told to quit the union.
The Phillipinos in ChCh were employed about last Christmas ..there was hardly any work for them when they first arrived….
This whole job loss scenario was played out at the end of last year but was averted..no such luck this time tho.
All of this mess goes back to privatisation but noone in the current govt is going to say so.
And where is Steven Joyce? All quiet on the National front.
@Theresaj
My Hubby was in charge of training the Filipinos when they arrived on NZs antiquated network. Great guys. The network is more advanced in the Philippines. There wasn’t much work for them when they arrived here either. Why the big recruitment drive in the Philippines? I feel for everyone in Transfield awaiting Fridays decision. I thought Telecom announced not long ago that, ” there is plenty of work for everyone “.
We are now as a family caught up in this VS decision.
We will not be signing with VS,instead looking for other work or waiting until we get paid for a fair days work.
Good for you Another Wife…Yes , why were the Phillipinos brought in ?
In my hubby’s area , there are eleven workers and they have been told that two of them will go. This is what I meant about the difference between now and the end of last year. This time it is for real.
My husband has been unemployed twice before…once for six months and then after about five years , for another one whole year..especially the year long period was really stressful. We are waiting till Friday before we start talking about anything. Restructuring and belt tightening is starting in my work also. We are just glad that we haven’t got young children. We would move if we had to.
another wife ..my husband was made redundant last wed..very mickey mouse outfit..How did your husband fare? or are you already in Brisbane?