Management have announced major changes to Delivery Night-shift.

They wish to reduce night-shift operations to the following Delivery Centres:

• Dandenong
• Port Melbourne
• Western
• Airport West
• Preston
• Sunbury &

• North Geelong / Corio

In additional to this re-structure, they are looking to down-size.  They believe about a third of Night-shift sorters are surplus.

This change is a consequence of the introduction of the new letter-sorting technology which allows the round-sorting of large letters. Management have released an Expression of Interest form which has been distributed to night-sorters.

The union is sceptical about the need to eliminate all other night-shift operations.  There are large night-shifts operating at Mooroolbark, Moorabbin and Hoppers Crossing DCs that it would make sense to retain.  We are concerned that the extra work in de-canting and distributing sequenced and round-sorted large letter mail and small parcels has been under-estimated. 

(Small parcels going to Delivery increased by 46% last year, and 88% in the last month).

We are concerned about the long-distances some operations are being asked to shift (e.g. Templestowe, Mooroolbark and Deepdene are supposed to relocate to DLC and Brighton is supposed to go to Port Melbourne).

 We have not been informed how the residue work sorted at the large DCs will reach the smaller DCs in time for delivery and just who will deliver this mail.

We would advise night-shift members to remember that

• there are no compulsory redundancies
• a reasonable redeployment is usually one with the same pay-rate and shift-time and within 30 kms and/or 30 minutes
• that you do not have to fill in an Expression of Interest at all but
• if you would really like to work at Melbourne Gateway Facility you should declare your interest immediately as there are only about 13 or 14 jobs available there
• if you are actively seeking a Voluntary Redundancy Package (VRP) now then make your interest known
• if your operations are slated to go to one DC but you would prefer to go to another, then make that known asap.
• Don’t panic; we believe this process will be done with consultation and that implementation of this stage of night-shift changes may take until November before they are completed.

Day-shift PDOs dreaming of a consequential VRP should apply to the Swaps Register (Contact Post People 1st 9107 1308).