Ahmed Fahour says 'pay's fair and relationships wonderful'! But only for Ahmed!
Ahmed Fahour’s claims on ABC radio yesterday that postal workers have received 10%, averaging 3% p.a. in pay increases over the last 5 years are not correct.
Pay increases over the last 5 years have averaged less than 2.5% p.a. This is below inflation (3% in July 2014). And the current EBA pay deal came after low increases in 2010 of 2.5%, 2011 of 1.5%, 2012 of 1.5% and 2013 of 1.5%.
Mr. Fahour is however correct in saying that the CWU national office did not support the wage offer in EBA8. We wanted a better upfront pay rise, particularly as the new pay offer included the 1.5% in Dec 2013 that was already promised under EBA7! The fact is there have been no new pay rises until August this year – 0.5%.
We wanted members to keep ahead of inflation, superannuation protected and increased allowances.
The protections for superannuation benefits that Post and some individuals said were locked in are not. Approximately 17,000 workers are affected by Post’s unilateral changes to the APSS. That’s every second person. The average gap between the AWOTE salary (frozen by Post) and current salary is $8,000 – so we are not talking about small sums of money that people will lose.
When questioned about his own $4.8 million salary in 2013, including a whopping $1.9 million base salary and more than 2 million in incentive pay, Mr Fahour had nothing to say.
Instead Mr. Fahour also told ABC radio that relationships between Post and workers are “wonderful”. He is seeking changes to the Community Service Obligations. For example, he wants three days to deliver most mail. The savings will come from redundancies and loss of penalty rates. And with 900 jobs that Post calls the “headcount reduction” being axed in non operational areas and further job cuts yet to be announced in operational areas, Mr. Fahour is obviously not talking to workers.
