Australia Post workers are now in enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations with their employer.
Last financial year Australia Post made an after-tax profit of $281 million after it paid the federal government a $213 million dividend. Workers have been falling behind the consumer price index which has grown 2.7% per year while wages only grew by 1%.
This has mostly affected workers at the bottom of the scale — those who sort and deliver mail or work in retail outlets. Up to one third of these workers are employed on a part-time or casual basis and barely earn more than the poverty line.
At the same time, the numbers of highly paid management workers have grown, from 304 to 454 being paid $150,000 or more a year. CEO Ahmed Fahour gets $3 million a year.
The CEO has been touring the country to "cry poor "to crowds of managers and has said the Australia Post needs to spend $2 billion on technology and equipment. This is likely to put more workers out of jobs.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents postal workers in Victoria, boycotted the CEO road show. It reported that about 100 invited officials and workplace delegates were denied entry to a meeting in Melbourne and were labelled as "protesters".
Joan Doyle, Victorian state secretary of the CWU, said this lock-out was poor form when all the delegates had been invited and had travelled long distances to meet Fahour.
Doyle said: “Postal workers have suffered real wage cuts for the past three years, with pay-rises of only 2% in December 2010, 1.5% in December 2011 and 1.5% in December 2012 since the last EBA had been signed off in October 2010. Postal workers with families are now struggling to make ends meet and cannot cope with any more of Fahour’s wage restraint.”
Doyle read out motions passed in many delivery centres, post offices and other workplaces calling for a fair and decent pay rise, job security and no cuts to conditions.
Workers whose current EBA runs out in July are seeking an 8% rise in the first year and CPI increases to follow. They are also seeking better job security and more fulltime positions.
While letter numbers have gone down, parcel numbers have risen by 20% in the last year. In retail outlets, staff are expected to do much more identity services work such as processing passports, working-with-children checks and some tax applications, as well as international money services and selling insurance products.
One worker, who is in a 20-hour-a-week job in retail and cannot secure a full time position, told Green Left Weekly: "My hours get changed around monthly or fortnightly depending on where I am working. I struggle to feed the family each week and even have to wait to get these silly little bonuses that come up from time to time".
[To support the Australia Post workers’ campaign for decent wages, please visit this page.]