THE NEWS WRAP: Optus boss admits even banks are better at customer service

Optus chief executive officer, Kevin Russell, has admitted the customer service standard at major Australian telcos is worse than that at the big four banks. “The standard of service in Australia relative to the standard of service in the UK just seems to have gone backwards,” Russell said during a speech to the Australia […]

Andrew Sadauskas 30 May, 2013

Optus chief executive officer, Kevin Russell, has admitted the customer service standard at major Australian telcos is worse than that at the big four banks.

“The standard of service in Australia relative to the standard of service in the UK just seems to have gone backwards,” Russell said during a speech to the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne.

“It is not my aspiration in life to be completely outgunned by banks, but they have done a good job.”

Failure to adapt to EBAs killed union membership: Kelty

Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty has blamed a failure to adapt to enterprise bargaining agreements for the fall in union membership during the late 1980s and early 90s.

In an interview with The Australian, Kelty said that while some unions adapted to the changed industrial relations environment, many others failed to do so.

“They didn’t particularly love it, but they got straight into it, straight into the agreement-making and their membership didn’t fall. Other unions said: ‘Well, we’re restructuring, we’re fighting one another. We’re more interested in making a claim for having an extra 20 people here or protecting four people there or six people. We’re protecting the 1980s, not 2000,’” Kelty said.

“Well, they saw their membership get decimated. Some unions almost disappeared. That’s because they were not bargaining… not responding to the pressures.”

Nine Entertainment owners fly in for WIN Television takeover talks

Senior executives from Nine Entertainment’s parent companies, private equity firms Apollo and Oaktree, are flying into Sydney for talks about a possible takeover of television stations in Adelaide and Perth.

Currently, Nine’s affiliates in the cities are owned by Bruce Gordon’s WIN Television, with plans to take over the stations being driven by a looming deadline for the rights to broadcast Cricket Australia matches.

However, the situation is complicated by the possibility Gordon might affiliate his remaining stations with the Ten Network if he sells the Perth and Adelaide stations, giving him a vested interest in seeing rival bidder Ten win the cricket rights.