Union Must Come Clean On Christmas Strike

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10th December 2009, 01:16pm - Views: 870
Union Must Come Clean on Christmas Strike

The CEPU must declare what impact industrial action will have on the public's Christmas mail after serving industrial notices on Australia Post declaring a Christmas strike.

Despite promises to the public that there would be no impact to the mail this Christmas, the union have notified Australia Post of strike action and indefinite bans commencing Friday across the business.

"Yesterday we had the union tell the public that any industrial action would have no impact on Christmas mail. Yet they had already informed Australia Post that strike action could begin as early as Friday," said Australia Post spokesperson Alex Twomey.

National union Secretary Ed Husic said yesterday, "what we're trying to do is ensure that Christmas mail gets through, we're trying to balance out our responsibility, and what our members feel is important to do for the public."

This was supported by NSW State Secretary Jim Metcher who said, "the many postal workers out there as part of this campaign are not about to disrupt the postal services leading into Christmas when the many families within the country rely on the postal service."

Yet on Tuesday, Queensland Secretary Cameron Thiele said ""Well, there is a chance, there is a big chance next week that there will be postal disruptions."

"The union must come clean and declare to the public, if there will be disruptions to Christmas mail. The delivery of mail is an essential service, especially at Christmas and to promise the public there will be no disruptions, while advising Australia Post there will be a number of days of strike action is simply dishonest," said Mr Twomey

The union have notified Australia post that they will be taking the following industrial action:
* work stoppages of various lengths between 1 to 24 hours
* stop work meetings of varying length in various states
* a ban sorting on parcels
* a ban on overtime and administrative duties
* a ban on delivering mail and parcels

"Only 8876 staff voted for industrial action out of 17,970 union members and a total workforce of 35,000. The majority of our staff doesn't support industrial action and we will have contingencies in place to handle disruptions," said Mr Twomey.

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

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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