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Issue No. 149 | 23 August 2002 |
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Our Historical Mission
Interview: Something Smells Cole-Watch: Credibility Crisis Unions: Union Cities Industrial: Lib Men Gang Up Against Working Mums History: Eureka! East Timor: Don�t Rob Their Future Review: Black Chicks Say It All Poetry: Self Regulation
The Soapbox The Locker Room Postcard Week in Review Bosswatch
 Shit SheetsSusan's Soccer Outrage
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Interview Something SmellsInterview with Peter Lewis
There's been a series of amazing stories coming out of Australia Post. What's going on? I think what where seeing is a culture now being exposed as the one recommended by the one and only Workplace Relations Minister himself, Tony Abbot. We've seen a certain group of management within Australia Post who have adopted his philosophy - the Bad Boss syndrome. By being a bad boss, now seems to be a good boss and brings a lot of benefits for them when it comes time to measure their performance and their bonuses. So what's occurred to change the environment? The boys at Australia Post have gone into a sort of panic. The postal industry has been effected by technological change, not just in Australia but also right across the world. We have substitution starting to kick in and management doesn't seem to be able to come to terms with looking at alternative services that they can offer, and take advantage of their network. We have seen the post office network develop where they take on the slack that's been left by the massive bank closures, but by and large management seem to lack the vision to transform the postal service. It seems a pretty big change in the culture. What are the sort things your members have done to help Australia post survive, and what is the drastically changed information? I think one of the biggest disappointments that our have, is that they've gone through the changes with Australia Post. With the involvement of the union, they have made the changes that were necessary. But they also believe that at the other end of the tunnel, there was going to be some job security. What we're seeing now is a company and organisation that's taken advantage of the situation where they've gone through significant changes and turned their back on their employees. What you're seeing now that wages are actually reducing. In Sydney, for example, wages are not just made up of the normal salary and shift allowance, but that little bit of overtime, that makes up the normal salary. Obviously that's necessary, because the high cost of living in Sydney and the high mortgages that people are paying. What we've seen is Australia Post has turned their back on this and workers employment arrangements are starting to deteriorate, with more and more fixed term employees, part time employment, which just undermines full time workers having any opportunity to access for additional incomes. So what are some of the concrete changes that your members have made to help Australia post? Our postal workers right across the board have made Australia Post what it is today. Australia Post is still considered as the world's best postal service, even the World Bank recognise them in that regard. And postal workers have gone through significant changes with the introduction of new work practices, introduction of automation, new technology, adapted to that with these new skilling. But in return we've seen a sort of bullying where every dollar is starting to be examined by Australia Post. And it is usually if the workers entitlements and benefits that are under attack. Let's talk about some of the actual practices that have come to public attention. Can just give us a bit of context behind the limit on toilet paper, for instance. What was all that about? The matter was brought to my attention by a member and, in the current context, it was appropriate that we aired it publicly. But the reaction to that story by management has been astounding. When we see the unions starting to stand up on behalf of workers, officials are now being intimidated and bullied by the management. Every time we go public on a matter, we see the old smear campaigns coming up in the workplace, where they attack myself personally, attack my officials, with these campaigns. What I find amusing is the question of "shit sheets". All I did was ask Australia Post formally, a couple of weeks ago, was to move the "shit sheets" from the workplace, I didn't think that anybody would think that I was talking about of toilet paper!. So you're saying that you asked them to remove "shit sheets" about you? Not only that I have asked Australia Post to remove "shit sheets" in the form of smear campaigns, that are against myself and the officials of the branch because of the activity that we've taken on behalf of their employees who are members of our union. Management are putting "shit sheets" out? Management constantly are responsible for these smear campaigns and we can show examples where every time that we go public on the issue, there is a smear campaign in the workplace. What sort of smears? Well they treat officials with type of offensive and unacceptable behaviour that wouldn't be accepted by any normal person. But more in recent times they've attempted to brush the union officials as them being the bullies and thugs. You've taken action today in the Health Complaints Commission. You've also taken action in the Human Rights Commission. You seem to be looking at a lot of alternate avenues to actually fight Australia Post?. Well, I think unions have got to look at all types of avenues that are available to them. Unions can't just simply rely on the industrial muscle these days, or the role of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. We'd like to, but that's on the basis that the government determines to give the powers back to allow them to resolve disputes. This is one of the fundamental problems that we're all facing, especially in the federal jurisdiction: the commission doesn't have the power to conciliate matters outside of the award. So we're seeing more and more employers like Australia post, taking advantage of that and applying these type of behaviours to undermine the union in the workplace, but more importantly to try and cut them out of the workplace by not being involved at all. So finally where does this end? Are you going to continually so publicly go hitting Australia Post? Well that's an interesting question. The only way I probably could answer it is as I've said to Australia Post this week, last week, and the week before. I've given them the invitation by holding up the olive branch that they know where the CEPU state office is. When they want to come to the table and sit down and reasonably negotiate and put processes into place for resolving our disagreements not only between union officials and management, but right down to the workplace level, we're quite prepared to do that. We don't believe that this type of activity should continue and we think there's a major responsibility on Australia Post's part to understand that this type of activity should not occur anyway. They are big enough and responsible enough, and they should understand that the unions aren't going to go away, the unions are going to be here forever and we'll continue to stay in their face, and keep in their face until they come to the table and properly negotiate.
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