Nat'l protest at Oz Post tactics

Date: 16 December 2009

The major union covering employees within Australia Post has announced that from tomorrow it will be commencing a series of work stoppages across the country.

The decision comes in response to Australia Post's recent action to notify staff that they would not be paid for any day on which they engaged in partial work bans. (

"From the outset we sought to run a campaign that would minimise public disruption," said Communications Electrical, and Plumbing Union (CEPU) National President Ed Husic.

"However, as we advised last Friday, our members have been told that if they follow work bans for as little as 15 minutes, they would lose an entire day's pay. In the eyes of our members and their union this represents a serious escalation of the dispute.

"While our members understood that they'd lose pay if they stopped work, they're not going to tolerate the heavy handed approach by Post to take off them an entire day's pay for a partial ban.

"We wrote to Australia Post twice calling on them to re-think their hardline approach - but they adopted a typically uncompromising stance.

"The union's executive decided that the stoppages will occur from Wednesday. Most states will be participating in this action.

"South Australia has deferred its action for 24 hours, to help ensure the delivery of HSC results to students in that state. However, we expect that some states will join with South Australia by continuing action into Thursday."

The CEPU wrote to Australia Post last week inviting senior management to get involved in finding a way to reach a settlement to the dispute.

"Both the Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer refused to participate in discussions, even though the CEPU indicated it was prepared to meet Friday, over the weekend and yesterday to help broker a solution to the dispute.

"It simply beggars belief that the senior management team at Australia Post take home $8 million a year in pay yet fail to prove their worth in sorting out workplace disputes of this magnitude.

"Australia Post's behaviour during the course of this year - and in particular, in recent weeks - is setting a terrible example for a government owned corporation."

For further information

Contact:	Ed Husic, National President
Union:	CEPU
WWW:	http://www.cepuconnects.org

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