Take control, Telco retirees

THE EDITOR: Emoluments for senior and junior staffers fall within the remit of the CWU. What management pays itself is the board of directors’ business.

Negotiations for Telco retirees are being slow-walked, the last increase occurring in 2000. Retirees had been agitating since 2013 and the company caved in 2021, offering substantial increases which Communication Workers' Union (CWU) inexplicably rejected, the sticking point being the unified pension plan proposed by the company. The estimated $400 million payout to retirees is being delayed and jeopardised as a result.

None of the current union executives were ever employed with Telco and have no skin in the game and this may explain their unwillingness to bring closure.

In the interim, we continue to die with one party willing to negotiate and the other pursuing matters outside of its remit and capacity to resolve.

The union has failed to articulate its objectives, how it expects to achieve the objectives and why we are at this sticking point.

Retirees, you can regain control or leave matters in the capable hands of the CWU, which has never successfully negotiated on behalf of retirees. The available option is to picket the union and demand the resignation of its president and secretary general.

KEITH GONZALES

retiree, Telco/TSTT