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Hundreds of Telstra customer service staff made redundant today would be replaced by workers from The Philippines, a union official says.

But a spokeswoman for the telco said the 244 redundancies were part of a customer service revamp announced in June, and that the use of foreign workers was a short-term measure.

Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) national secretary Stephen Jones said Telstra managers were secretly in The Philippines assisting American labour hire company Teletech to set up the new operation.

"(The sacked workers) are the people who work in customer service support dealing with your bill problems, dealing with services, dealing with problems with contractors and sales support," Mr Jones said.

"We have concerns with the quality of the service (overseas workers) will provide and issues with information sent offshore that certainly will not be under the jurisdiction of Australian law."

The redundancies "make a mockery" of Telstra commitment to keep staff and investment in Australia, Mr Jones said.

Telstra announced in June it would make 244 staff redundant because new technology and more efficient customer service processes replaced them, a Telstra spokeswoman said.

source: australianit.news.com.au