THE horse may have bolted, but some Telstra employees who have lost their jobs in the latest round of cuts at Australia's biggest telco have scrambled to join their unions.
Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) national secretary Louise Persse said those people who joined the union on Friday were realising the services and representation the union provides.
"We've had some people join this morning who are affected by this issue," she told AAP.
"We've had a lot of interest.
"It highlights to everyone that anything can happen to them in their employment."
Telstra said most of the 950 jobs to go were management positions, but Ms Persse said that was debatable.
"Telstra is saying it is mostly middle management, but how do they define that?" Ms Persse said.
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".. for instance, does that include someone supervising a small group of staff?
"We are just starting to hear from staff now who have been impacted."
She said Telstra workers in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, along with some regional cities, had been told they are going.
"It's three per cent of the Telstra workforce, so it's hard to see how it won't affect service efficiency and workloads for those staff remaining," Ms Persse said.
Telstra said the job cuts would shift decision-making from head office to local managers, making the system more efficient.
"Telstra has talked a lot about streamlining over the last few years, but our members tell us it takes longer to connect a phone now than it did 10 years ago," Ms Persse said.
Telstra said affected employees would have access to assistance programs and, based on their length of service, redundancy entitlements of up to 80 weeks pay.
Earlier this year, Telstra axed 900 jobs in its operational divisions and in August 330 executives were given their marching orders.
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