Resource Optimisation Model
The union has received 30 ROMs from
the West and North Area offices. Only
one post office has been recommended for extra resources.
Management is proposing to cut resources in all
other offices.
The union
has placed these ROMs in dispute for the following reasons:
- Lack of Consultation (The ROM Manual requires agreement between the Postal Manager and the Area Office. The staff are supposed to be part of the data collection process and are to sign off on whether they agree with the process and outcome. If it is not agreed, the union must be contacted for further consultation. Too often, staff just go along with it. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE ROM DO NOT SIGN OR BETTER STILL WRITE THAT YOU DON’T AGREE AND CONTACT THE UNION IMMEDIATELY.)
- The need to update MODAPTS
times due to the translation of Agency transactions to CEPOS
- Concern about the abolition
of full-time jobs Management
has targeted 5 full-time jobs for abolition.
- Concern about the
down-grading of supervisory positions Management
is trying to down-grade 2 supervisory positions
- Minimum Hours shift provisions In two offices, there are positions where staff are working less than 3 hours per shift.
The
union office is now receiving ROMs for the Central Area.
Our
other advice for retail members is that you need to remember unpaid,
voluntary
work can mean loss of paid hours for your part-time
work-mates.
Many
of our members think they are helping out by coming in early to
organise the
tills, or stock the shelves, or they stay back to finish up thinking to
make it
easier on the work group.
Often, senior management take advantage of this kindness and try to cut paid part-time hours. Australia Post by law is required to pay for all time worked. It is necessary to roster this work within paid hours e.g. some-one can be rostered to start early or stay late, or if you do work over your roster then time-in-lieu should be given or over-time paid.
Post Date: 8th February 2012 | Branch Secretary Postal
ELECTRIC AUSSIE MAIL BIKES (E-AMB)
The union has received a number of complaints about over-reaching issues associated with delivery on the new E-AMBs. We have asked our OH&S Advisor, Mark Hennessy, to investigate the problem.
If you have any comments on the new bike, please contact Joan Doyle or Chris Spindler at the union office 9600 9100 in the first instance and we will pass your comments onto Mark.
Post Date: 8th February 2012 | Branch Secretary Postal
DECIPHA There has been a long-running dispute at Decipha over the payment of afternoon shift penalty.
Members had wrongly only been paid penalties on hours they worked after 6pm, instead of for the entire shift. Before Christmas, an agreement was struck after a meeting with members who were affected, that involved the payment of the penalty rate back to November 2008 at the current rate of pay with the first year being paid before Christmas, the ongoing rate of pay being rectified at the same time, and the remainder being paid before February 3, 2012.
A Deed of Release was drawn up to that effect.
We then had Decipha renege on signing the deal. They only paid 6 months worth of back pay, and then reneged on the rate at which it would be paid i.e. at current rates of pay. Members had accepted that they would not go back and charge Decipha the whole six years’ worth of back pay in recognition of the more generous offer of the current rate of pay instead of the amount payable at the time. Obviously the value of that money has changed over time and members would be within their rights to charge interest on money owed.
Now that the Silly Season is over, the union will be acting to sort out this silly decision of Decipha.
There are also 2 night-shift workers who are owed 15% penalties because they were under-paid for their hours worked before midnight. A letter of demand has been sent on their behalf claiming 6 years’ back pay.
Unfortunately, for the early morning shift at Decipha the clause governing their penalty rates has been differently worded and they are only eligible for a 15% penalty rate for the hours they work before 6am.SPRINTPAK There are three current disputes at Sprintpak in Knox field.
The first is a long-standing one about the mis-use of agency staff. Management have agreed to make a small number of long-term agency staff permanent, but the union wants all eligible agency staff to be made permanent.
There is also a dispute about the contracting-out of the Stamp Destruction job. The potential for corruption and error is rife if this job is contracted out. After the disaster of the contracting-out of retail fulfillment, you would think management would know better.
We also have an outstanding re-classification matter to resolve.CREDIT MANAGEMENT Australia Post is centralising all their credit management functions from other States to Melbourne. But they want less people to do the work. Management has belatedly consulted the Federal & State union offices about the proposed structure and numbers in this section.
To our horror, the union discovered
that management had had agency staff working there for more than 5
years and
that these agency staff were acting in higher duty positions. This is just a blatant
breach of our
industrial instruments. There
is also a
strong concern about the work-loads of staff in this section. The good news is that
Credit management members
are getting organised and are electing a shop-steward and health and
safety
representative to work with the union office to resolve their many
issues.
ABUSE
OF THE DISCIPLINARY CODE
There has been a spate of dismissals at the Customer Call Centre at Pinewood. You might think there is a gang of thugs or thieves suddenly taking up employment there?
No, just a couple of ex-Telstra managers trying out Telstra tactics in Australia Post. Brady Jacobsen and Sharon Anderton were a partnership at Telstra and now they are trying out their ‘psychological warfare’ tactics at the CCC. The use of the Employee Counselling and Disciplinary Policy(ECDP) has increased dramatically and the staff attrition rate has sky-rocketed.
Before the Call Centre moved to Pinewood, it was generally a happy workplace and staff tended to stay for long periods of time. Now the average length of employment is 12 months and it is a very toxic workplace. For example, of 13 new employees who started in October 2011, there are now only 3 of these employees still at the CCC.
While many workplaces in Australia Post over-use the ECDP, consider how extreme these examples are.
One member was put up for a Warning Counselling. His crime was that he had ‘failed to notify of sick leave.’ The facts of the matter were that he had severely cut his thumb on a glass while washing up before going to work and had spent the day first at the doctor’s and then at the hospital on the doctor’s referral. He attended work early the next day and explained his inability to notify and provided his medical evidence. He, then had had to go home because his continuing incapacity to work which was duly certified with medical certificates. Although this Warning Counselling was ‘torn-up’ after two interviews and union intervention, it indicates management’s ‘unreasonable’ attitude which has only worsened over the following months.
Management gave out a Warning Counselling to a member because she failed to get a customer to confirm his name twice. She had correctly captured it the first time! They are now trying to sack her because after taking a person’s name and tracking number for an eParcel she stated the person’s address instead of eliciting that directly from the customer.
Management here has lost the plot with their ‘psycho-babble’, their surveillance of employees’ work phone calls and emails, and their unreasonable ‘time and motion’ regimes. The union has been told that they want to reduce the 7 second allotment of time for ‘After Call Work’ even further?!!
The union is going to formally complain to higher level management but if these ‘bullies’ aren’t brought into line, stronger action will be taken.Post Date: 8th February 2012 | Branch Secretary Postal
Members should be aware that they can open themselves up to disciplinary charges by commenting about their employer and supervisors on social media.
The best rule is DON’T DO IT!
Remember that your Facebook Friends
may not be your real friends and those words you keyed in without a
thought are
recorded and accessible as a permanent and public record.
The Federal Government has been working towards harmonizing the work health and safety laws across in Australia for some time. The new laws commenced on 1st January 2012.
While not all States have enacted the Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act as yet the new Act applies immediately in the Commonwealth jurisdiction. This means that Australia Post is subject to the new Act.
CWU members will be pleased to learn that the new laws represent a significant expansion of duties and liability on Commonwealth employers in relation to health and safety. Some of the most significant changes to the OH&S laws as a result of the WHS Act are set out below.
• An expansion of the persons to whom Australia Post owes a health and safety duty, with duties owed to ‘workers’ rather than ‘employees’. Now contractors and labour hire personnel are also covered.
• A positive duty to conduct due diligence, placing an obligation on “officers” (eg. Manager) to ensure compliance with the new legislation with breaches subject to a maximum penalty of $600,000 and/or 5 years imprisonment.
• A new duty to consult, co-ordinate and co-operate. This means Australia Post will have to consult with Postal workers on health and safety procedures and practices. More consultation and cooperation will now be required on OH&S.
• Where an OHS issue arises in the workplace, reasonable efforts must be made by the employer to resolve the problem. If no resolution can be achieved, an inspector may be appointed to assist.
• Designated Work Groups (DWGs) are now known as Work Groups (WGs). There can be multiple WGs in a business area.
• There are improved powers for HSRs (and Deputy) in consultation for identifying hazards, assessing risks, decision making and proposed changes. Also no limit on the number of HSRs that can be elected by a work group.
• HSRs receive Significant New Powers to represent workers, inquire into health and safety risks, be trained within three months of taking up role, right to choose their own accredited training provider, request the assistance of a consultant, accompany an inspector, direct that unsafe work cease etc. Workers also have the right to cease unsafe work. These new powers are a major expansion from the previous watered down Howard era OHS Act.
• Union right of entry provisions extended so that the union may enter workplaces for health and safety purposes without prior notice. Penalties will apply where an employer hinders union representatives i.e. $10,000 for individual managers. If the majority of employees request it then the union will conduct the election for HSRs.
• Tough penalties apply for breaches of the new laws – a maximum of $3 million for a corporation.
• HSRs can still issue a Provisional Improvement Notice (PIN).
If you are interested in becoming a HSR then contact your State CWU Branch ASAP. And, if you want to have a say in your workplace health and safety and you’re not a union member then join NOW.
Post Date: 8th February 2012 | Branch Secretary Postal
Expressions of interest close on 30 January.
PUBLIC HOLIDAYS Management at MPF is unwisely making a move on the staff’s Public Holidays. They have unilaterally announced that they intend rostering public holidays. They have agreed to talks and not to change the ‘current custom and practice’ of volunteers until after the Australia Day holiday. We need to change their minds. The right to public holidays has been fought for by unionists long and hard over many decades, and we don’t intend for Australia Post managers to whittle these rights away just because they are too lazy to work out a voluntary roster.
Post Date: 8th February 2012 | Branch Secretary Postal
Management made a play to try to take Sunday work and 30% penalties off the night-sorters at Hawthorn and Rosebud DCs, the trial sites for the PDO Day-shift Primary Sort Initiative. Basically, the PDOs who stayed and fought the issue kept their conditions and the others who got bluffed into thinking they would lose these conditions, accepted VRPs and left.
It is important to contact the union as soon as you get a hint that management may be making a move on you. It often takes longer than we would like to resolve a dispute, but members who fight usually win!
POSTAL DELIVERY CO-ORDINATORS Management has also been reviewing the supervisory structure. At Port Melbourne this has resulted in a bizarre proposal to do away with almost all the PDC 1 positions and replace them with PDC2 & PDC3 positions. This is an active dispute, and we hope to defeat this waste of money.
The union has also received Form A’s for a redundancy among the Team Leaders in each of Airport West, Moorabbin, Mooroolbark, Rosebud, Seaford, Templestowe and Western DCs. These redundancies are also in dispute due to the lack of consultation.