Coalition demands NBN wages documents

James Riley
Wednesday, 17 November 2010 16:43

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The union workforce agreements signed with the NBN Company did not apply to the tens of thousands of contractors engaged in the construction of the national broadband network and would do nothing to stop a wages blowout on the project, the Coalition has warned.

South Australian Senator Mary Jo Fisher, who chairs the Senate standing references committee on communications, says the NBN roll-out will put increased pressure on wages in the construction sector, which is already facing skills shortages.

Senator Fisher will tommorrow put a motion to the Senate demanding that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy table documents related to the NBN Co's enterprise bargaining agreements with its workers by next Monday.

Senator Fisher said the EBA's signed with NBN Co covered only 400 or so workers based in Melbourne and would not be binding on the expected 25,000 worked who would work primarly for contractors on the project.

She says the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union were rumoured to be seeking five per cent per year increases for workers involved involved on the project, double the two-and-a-half per cent annual pay rises that were budgeted for the project in the KPMG-McKinsey Implementation Study.

Senator Conroy earlier this week told the Senate that there was no indication that a wages blowout would occur as NBN Co because the EBA's had been signed.

"(Senator Conroy) tried to say there had already been an agreement struck with NBN Co with its workers, but that only covers 400 NBN Co workers in Melbourne," Senator Fisher said. "They're not the people that are going to be rolling out the NBN."

"The entire budget in the McKinsey Implementation Study was based on two-and-a-half per cent increases in wages per year. Even NBN Co's EBA with its people exceeds that. It's at four per cent per year and that's only over four years. Conroy hsa predicted the build will take eight years, so the EBA's only covers a very small and immaterial portion of the workforce," she said.

"So everything he said about the NBN Co (workers) was a red herring. The real rub is in the contractors. Of that, he tried to say that there was already an agreed set of principles with with the ACTU that will unfold through the industry. Well I want a copy of it."