Australia Post staff to plan industrial action

Mail services in Queensland will be disrupted this week if planned industrial action by Australia Post staff goes ahead.

The stoppages would hit Queensland and NSW sites for between four and 24 hours on Wednesday.

Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union state secretary Cameron Thiele said the 92 per cent of Australia Post staff who were also union members could also stop work on Thursday if desired revisions to a new enterprise bargaining agreement were not met.

“Our members don’t accept the terms of the pay rise and they also want the agreement shortened to 24 months,” he said.

Mr Thiele said the union was also concerned about a plan to scale back full-time positions to part-time in the company’s delivery section.

Australia Post external relations manager Matt Pollard said the severity of disruptions to mail delivery would depend on how many union members took part in the action. Mr Pollard said only about half the union members had taken part in Queensland’s first mail strike in 20 years on May 13 this year.

He said the union had agreed to pay rises totalling 10 per cent over 28 months recently, but had since distributed posters in workplaces urging members to strike.

“Any industrial action is not in anyone’s interests,” Mr Pollard said. “It’s not in the interest of our employees or our customers who may have their services disrupted.”

A 4 per cent pay rise was paid to all employees last Monday.

Mr Thiele said Australia Post had threatened to withdraw the existing EBA agreement if industrial action was not called off.