Sue Bolton, Melbourne
The postal and telecommunications section of the Communication Workers' Union (CWU P&T) set up an indefinite picket outside Australia Post's new Melbourne parcel facility on January 23, after negotiations with management broke down over the restructure of Australia Post's parcel network.
Australia Post management is using the transfer of around 250 workers from the State Parcel Centre, State Mail Centre, Melbourne Transport Centre and Linehaul to its new facility as an excuse to reduce workers' pay and conditions.
The plan to transfer all the workers on January 26 and 27 was foiled by the union. A January 16 mass meeting voted unanimously to ban the transfer. Workers will continue reporting for work at their current locations.
There are numerous problems associated with the transfer:
- Many workers are yet to be allocated permanent jobs, which means that they can be sent to work anywhere in the state;
- Management intends replacing vacated full-time jobs with part-time positions;
- Management plans to cut many members' penalty rates from 30% to 15% by bringing forward their starting times from 9pm to 8pm, even though they work past midnight;
- Management has reneged on several clauses in the last enterprise bargaining agreement. These include granting full-time worker status to formally part-time workers who have been working full-time for years, as well as increasing the minimum hours of part-time workers from five hours per day to six hours. Shifts longer than five hours necessitate a meal break;
- Management is planning to abolish fortnightly rostered days off; and
- Management has announced that it will individually monitor workers to ensure that they meet higher sorting rates or risk losing their jobs. Each worker is expected to sort at the maximum speed for their entire shift, despite the Melbourne Parcel Centre having the highest sorting rate in the country.
CWU (P&T) state secretary Joan Doyle told Green Left Weekly that "the increased sorting speeds are unsafe. Workers in other sections of Australia Post have been sacked for being unable to keep up with increased sorting rates."
Doyle's comments were backed up by David Caple, an advser to the federal government's workers' compensation insurer, Comcare. According to the union's newsletter, Caple told Australia Post management that employees should be able to sort within a band of sorting speeds, rather than every single employee having to sort at the maximum speed. He said this expectation could impact adversely on their health and safety.
According to Doyle, Australia Post justifies its attempt to make the majority of the parcel facility's work force part-time by claiming its new parcel sorting machine reduces the number of necessary workers.
The union argues that the savings from the new machine should be invested in improving workplace conditions.
Despite management intimidation, members are supportive of the industrial action. On the first day of the picket, none of the Linehaul drivers would cross the picket line. However, some lower-level managers attempted to take over and drive the trucks through the picket.
Unless Australia Post concedes the members' demands, all workers affected by the transfer will strike for 24 hours from 6am on January 29.
The workers' determination to take industrial action took management by surprise. Australia Post had grown used to years of sweetheart deals with the previous union leadership, during which many postal workers' conditions were given away.
A new leadership, led by Doyle, took office on August 1. Since then, for the first time in many years union membership has increased, and all mail and parcel centres are being visited by union officials on a regular basis. Since August, 97 mostly new delegates and 25 health-and-safety representatives have been elected.
From Green Left Weekly, January 28, 2004.
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