Australia Post snubs Trade Workers Union

Australia Post has rejected TWU calls for a separate enterprise agreement covering its growing transport and logistics arms, saying one agreement is enough. TWU Qld sec Hughie Williams told Workforce there were “several hundred” workers in Brisbane doing “exactly transport work” carting general freight for Post and for Post–Qantas joint ventures Star Track Express and Australian Air Express. “They are even calling themselves a transport logistics company,” he said. Some 210 of Brisbane’s 270 drivers have joined the TWU, but “Australia Post doesn’t want anything to do with the TWU”, Williams said. Post spokesperson Elizabeth Rich said the TWU is neither a respondent nor a party to any of its awards or agreements and Post will not negotiate a separate agreement covering transport workers. “Australia Post currently has in-principle support from relevant unions for its sixth enterprise agreement. We see no benefit from having a range of separate agreements covering parts of workplaces and then different rights and entitlements in different states and facilities,” she said. The TWU took industrial action in June and July and held a short picket on Sept 8, but the AIRC declined to grant Post s127 orders on Sept 17 because further action was not slated. Voting on Post’s EBA VI with the CEPU and CPSU starts October 6.