Fair Work Australia Orders Mail Strike To End

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17th December 2009, 11:08am - Views: 873
Fair Work Australia Orders Mail Strike to End

Fair Work Australia last night ruled in favour of Australia Post and ordered planned strike action by the postal union to be stopped.

This morning, mail and parcel delivery is returning to normal as Australia Post's workers begin clearing the backlog in Victoria.

"We are especially thankful to the majority of our staff who didn't participate in industrial action. As a result we have had minimal impact in most states with Victoria the only one to have a backlog due to illegal picket lines," said Australia Post spokesperson Alex Twomey.

Fair Work Australia late last night ruled that the union must stop, not organise and not engage in stoppages. As a result the union have informed members that "Fair Work Australia has ordered the CEPU stoppages of work notified for 17, 18, 19 and 21 December not occur."

In the Federal Court last night, the union gave an undertaking to not prevent or hinder free access to any premises owned by Australia Post and to not abuse, threaten, beset, harass or intimidate any person who is in the vicinity of or on Australia Post's Facilities.

"We now have the picket lines removed from our facilities in Victoria, meaning mail can begin to move through the system again," said Mr Twomey.

Despite the undertaking to the Federal court the picket lines were not removed until early this morning.

Australia Post has informed the union our negotiation team is happy to meet with them at any time.

Australia Post has been negotiating in good faith on a generous EBA which delivers job security and wage increases. At the same time the union have twice been found by Fair Work Australia to not be genuinely trying to reach agreement with Australia Post.

"We have an offer which includes a four percent pay increase, 14 weeks paid maternity leave, an agreement of no forced redundancies and locks in existing entitlements," said Mr Twomey.

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For further information, please contact:
Alex Twomey
03 9204 5362

Australia Post is the oldest continually operating organisation in Australia. Every day Australia Post delivers 20 million items to 10.7 million addresses across Australia. With 4,433 outlets across the nation we are the largest retail network in Australia with 2,541 of these outlets in rural and remote areas. We are a self-funding business and receive no taxpayer funding.


SOURCE: Australia Post

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