Further service impacts imminent with Australia Post's latest band-aid for resourcing failures, union warns
** Editor's Note: This afternoon Australia Post has scrapped bonus payments for its executive team after facing pressure for asking workers to volunteer. The media release below has been updated to reflect the announcement this afternoon **
The Union representing postal workers has warned Australia Post’s latest band-aid fix for its resourcing failures will only result in further service impacts.
Australia Post’s request for employees in Victoria to use their own transportation and work unpaid overtime on weekends to help clear a backlog of parcel deliveries was just another band-aid fix for an imploding operating model, said CEPU Communications Union National President Shane Murphy.
The Union called out the Australia Post executive group for continuing to ignore its resourcing failures and said management should instead scrap their reduced service model and prioritise fixing ongoing issues with systemic underemployment in Australia Post.
“There are hundreds of vacant delivery rounds across the country and under regulation changes which slash services to the public, posties are being directed to start later in the day – forcing them to leave parcels behind, or bring them back at the end of their shifts undelivered, every day across Victoria and the rest of the country,” Mr Murphy said today.
“The backlog exists because posties can simply not catch up.
“Is this the sort of bright idea that the executive group believe justifies the CEO’s request for them to share in $7 million in bonus payments?
“Today it is being reported that one million Australians are unemployed. Australia Post has hundreds of vacancies across the country they are refusing to fill which would fix their delivery bottlenecks and provide jobs to those who need them, easing the pressure on government unemployment benefits.
“You don’t need to be an accountant to figure out $7 million in executive bonuses could be better spent on fixing underemployment and delivering the services the community expects.
“The Federal Government has regulated service cuts and regulated wage freezes for frontline postal workers who are putting their health and safety on the line each day they go to work, yet it seems Minister Fletcher is refusing to put his foot down to stop the Australia Post executive group from sharing in $7 million in bonuses. It’s a disgrace.
“Highly paid public sector executives shouldn’t be rewarded for taking the harshest cuts to our community’s postal service in 200 years.
“Postal regulation changes have not improved deliveries; they’ve only regulated to accommodate Australia Post’s continued underemployment failures.
“We challenge Minister Fletcher to accompany us to posties’ workplaces to hear first-hand from these frontline workers on just how detrimental these changes are for this essential community service.” Mr Murphy said.
Media contact: Jane Garcia 0455 111 593
