C2005/1808, Transcript of Proceedings [2005] AIRCTrans 662 (16 March 2005)

1800 534 258

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

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Workplace Relations Act 1996 10773

COMMISSIONER FOGGO

C2005/1808

s.170LW - application for settlement of dispute (certification of agreement)

Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information, Postal, Plumbing and Allied Services Union of Australia
and
Australia Post Australia Post Australia Post
(C2005/1808)
Australia Post Enterprise Agreement 2004

MELBOURNE

1.02PM, FRIDAY, 04 MARCH 2005

Continued from 22/2/2005

PN1

THE COMMISSIONER: Ms Doyle.

PN2

MS J DOYLE: Commissioner, if I could just remind you of the issue, tell you where our discussions have led. We seek your assistance with further conciliation and foreshadow our request for arbitration. Basically we are seeking a recommendation that the issue not be settled by default by the appointment of permanent, new part time people and perhaps seek a timetable in the matter for arbitration. Firstly, just to remind you of the issue. This is about the - - -

PN3

THE COMMISSIONER: Well, yes. Can I just refer to the information that you provided to me yesterday.

PN4

MS DOYLE: Yes.

PN5

THE COMMISSIONER: Attached to that information, which I thank you for, is the letter from Mick Kelly. Now that, I think, represents certainly where Australia Post is and I understand that that doesn't meet the position that we talked about on the last hearing. So are they the issues as you see them?

PN6

MS DOYLE: Perhaps if I could just say a little bit more. We had a national meeting and we thought that we were going along the same lines but unfortunately our offers really hadn't been considered at all and we feel that they were just time wasting really because, you know, we were genuinely putting good offers on the table that would inconvenience our members. We were trading, I suppose, and we have got that they haven't considered our proposal at all. They have only provided one part of the information that they said they would.

PN7

What we are really seeking is information on the additional hours and overtime hours worked in these hubs and particularly for the people who are nominally part time but have put in claims to have the underlying hours of the hours they work, recognised and the nominal hours increased. There are some part time people who are working, you know, full time hours and under the EBA have got the right to have those looked at and considered whether their positions can become, increase their hours on a permanent basis.

PN8

THE COMMISSIONER: All right, so that is a separate or allied issue?

PN9

MS DOYLE: It is an allied issue because - - -

PN10

THE COMMISSIONER: Well, can I just finish the sentence? To the position that we talked about on the last occasion of the positions that Australia Post wanted to make part time positions?

PN11

MS DOYLE: Our position is, in these hubs, the work can be re jigged. They are 15 minute work blocks that can be put in together in any combinations, right, to make full time or part time jobs. We understand Australia Post has less work available in the middle of the day, from 10am to 2pm, but they have been less than honest with the union as to what can be done in that period of time. We have got suggestions about what work can be provided in that middle of the day and they haven't given us the information we require, to prove that these part time people, in actual fact, are working extended hours and could, the full time positions could be saved.

PN12

And we are saying that under the EBA, that there are clauses in the EBA, that obligate them to prefer full time positions, if the flow of work provides, and we believe the options that we have put forward, allow them to prefer those full time jobs and we have, as well as putting the proposal to Australia Post, we have been investigating the conditions in the hubs and we have found that there has been a great work intensification and speed up and quite literally. Because what these drivers do is speed around, not have proper breaks, there is part time workers who work solidly there four and five hours without any tea break.

PN13

They are given ad hoc pick ups without any times being added to their duty boards, they are called. So they are expected to do additional work and not given the time to do them. They are misused in that on four or five hours, and yet many of them, if you work in the morning, if there is a need for somebody in the afternoon, you are either told to come back in the afternoon or you are rung up at home and told to come in the afternoon and at the last session, we explained that our award doesn't provide for split shifts. We have found out that there is no recall money being paid.

PN14

If you are rung at home and asked to come back in, there is a recall provision, and we have even discovered there is people who are being asked to work at another hub. They might belong to one hub and then they are asked to go and help out at another hub without ETT and excess fares or recall money. We have discovered full time people who start in the morning who are doing from 5 am til 6.30 pm with a break 12.30 to 2 pm and those people are working beyond the, you are only allowed to work 12 hours basically.

PN15

We have found that health and safety standards are appalling, we went through the gloves issue with - if you will remember Commissioner, last time, and I think we have secured gloves for everyone and we are now finding that the safety shoes are an issue. We have got overloaded vans with unsecured parcels in the front of the van, like the cockpits, they are called. We have got rehabilitees being asked to breach their return to work programmes because the work has to be done and so we have gone out there and seen the conditions in the hubs and we believe Australia Post are, they are wanting to have part time workers because they can speed them up and they can get greater work out of them and this is not what our awards and our EBAs provide and we believe Australia Post has a legal obligation.

PN16

They have to prove that there is a genuine need to abolish a full time job and we are saying the opposite. We are saying that those full time jobs can work in an effective and efficient way and we have literally got the proposals that show that. For example we got a list, Australia Post has managed to get a lot more extra customers and they are claiming that those customers only want attention between 8am and 10am and then 2pm to 5.30 or 6pm. What we would say is that, just taking one example, Casey Hospital told us they went to Australia Post but they actually dropped off Australia Post because they couldn't provide a pick up at 12.30 when the mailing room closed.

PN17

We understand that we have got a - there is a division of Australia Post called sprint pack, that prints all the stamps and all the stuff that the post offices need and that has to be distributed around the post offices. Now that work can be done in the middle of the day and is preferred by most licensed post offices and corporate offices to be done at that time because they have a big rush first thing in the morning so that they prefer, you know, to have it done and we believe that if Australia Post were genuine about the clauses and I would like to read you the clauses, Commissioner, because at the end of the day, if Australia Post aren't prepared to negotiate on it, we will be seeking arbitration on exactly what those clauses mean.

PN18

THE COMMISSIONER: All right. Well I don't think you need to take me to the clauses. All right, thank you. Now there are some issues that you have raised there that I believe go beyond the issue of the removal of the permanent full time position at the hubs, and I think we can set those aside for one moment but we certainly can come back to them. Mr Grodeck?

PN19

MR GRODECK: Yes, Commissioner. I was actually going to start by saying that I thank Ms Doyle for raising a whole lot of other issues which we have consultative mechanisms to manage through our - - -

PN20

THE COMMISSIONER: I don't think that you are thanking Ms Doyle for raising them at all, Mr Grodeck.

PN21

MR GRODECK: But if those are issues, then I would hope that they are raised through the appropriate consultative mechanisms that we do have in place to raise safety issues and others. My understanding of why we are here today is with regard to the changing of three full time jobs to part time jobs. From the last time that we were at the Commission in this room, we have had a national meeting and at that national meeting we had further consultations and we provided the CPU with the opportunity to provide us with further information to assist us with our decision.

PN22

There were a number of actions that came out of that meeting and then there were some commitments given to share information. We provided some information to the CPU with regard to customer numbers and I note in Ms Doyle's letter of today, well the letter that we received today, that there was some issue with the fax being unreadable and I do understand that a hard copy went to Ms Doyle with that information as well. There was also a commitment for the CPU to provide us with some information as well and we received some of that information today.

PN23

We have taken all of that into consideration, the information that we discussed at the consultation at the national level. We did make our decision to go ahead with the changing of those three full time jobs to part time jobs before we received
Ms Doyle's letter of today, but we did expect to have information earlier in the week. The purpose of the consultation was exactly that, to consult and to listen to what the CPU had to say and whether they could provide to us any further information that would allow us to make the changes that we were making in a way that meant that we could still run the business in an effective and efficient situation.

PN24

We outlined in the letter to Ms Doyle why we were still going ahead with that decision. I do want to raise one other issue and that is to do with part time employees working extended hours. We have actually received a letter from the CPU with a list of employees asking us for information and we will deal with that. I believe it is a separate issue altogether. What we are here today is to talk about three vacant full time positions that we have reviewed and that we have determined that we can't organise that work efficiently and effectively around the full time options and therefore we have come to the decision, after consultations, that they will part time positions.

PN25

But with regard to those employees who are claiming that they are working extended hours and therefore should be full time or should have a higher number of part time hours as their base hours, we actually have a mechanism for that where the employee or the union can provide us with information in a form and then we review it. And in fact, last year in the hubs we did, I think, 22 reviews of employees where information was brought to us to say that they were working more extended hours than their underlying hours and most of those did actually achieve an increase from four hours base part time position to five hours part time position.

PN26

I have got the actual numbers here, but I think it is about 22. The other thing I would like to mention is that we did give a commitment to the CPU that we wouldn't nominally fill those three part time positions until after we had had the national meeting. Ms Doyle has pointed out in her letter today that we made that commitment. We have now been consulting on this issue for a number of weeks and we really are at the point where we do need to move ahead with that. We have a number of staff at those three hubs who are fixed term or casual and we haven't placed them in nominal positions because we agreed not to.

PN27

We are doing that for other people across the rest of the hub network, in fact, those people will be appointed into positions next week and we believe it wouldn't be fair to hold those other people at the three hubs in question for too much longer, given that they have work colleagues who will be in permanent positions and they won't. So there is some urgency to the matter from our point of view. I think that covers all of the issues that we have from that as I maybe just summarise that we did go into those consultations at the national level. We have considered the suggestions that have been made to us by the CPU and we have written to them and advised of our decision following those consultations.

PN28

THE COMMISSIONER: And that is the letter from Mr Kelly, dated 3 March 2005?

PN29

MR GRODECK: That is correct, Commissioner. Thank you.

EXHIBIT #G1 LETTER FROM MR KELLY DATED 03/03/2005

PN30

THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Grodeck, what is Australia Post's response in relation to the issues that Ms Doyle has raised regarding arbitration?

PN31

MR GRODECK: Commissioner, well our response is, first of all, I am not one hundred per cent clear given that Ms Doyle has raised quite a few other issues here, what specifically, if she is saying that we need to arbitrate this specific issue of these three full time positions being changed to part time positions, because the way that she articulated it was that she wanted to test the EBA clauses, so I am not exactly sure what she is suggesting should be arbitrated. If it is the three part time positions to full time positions, we would say that we have made those assessments and we have utilised the EBA.

PN32

We understand the clauses in the EBA. We have followed those clauses in the EBA in making those decisions. We followed the consultative mechanisms. So we wouldn't believe that arbitration is necessary in this case, Commissioner.

PN33

THE COMMISSIONER: Even if at the end of the day, whilst you submit that you have followed the clauses in EBA 6, and there is still no agreement from the CPU, it would appear, on face value at least, that there is an extant dispute between the parties and that the EBA provides procedures to resolve the dispute and/or arbitration if required.

PN34

MR GRODECK: Well, I suppose the answer to that is, we could enter into further discussions. However, unless Ms Doyle can bring further information to us, and yes certainly we did discuss and we did go back and forth at that meeting about looking at ways to increase the amount of work in the middle of the day when we do have those times when no work is available and I note that Ms Doyle has made some comments that it is available. Obviously we refute that. We could have ongoing discussions about that but unless there was information that we don't already have in our possession, I don't see there being a change in the direction that we are heading, Commissioner.

PN35

THE COMMISSIONER: All right. Could you explain to me the third issue that is raised in Mr Kelly's letter regarding part time employment and he refers specifically to those time periods that you have been talking about where there is the 8 to 10pm and 2pm to 5, when there is a particular workload. He then indicates that he is preparing a matrix of work flows generally applicable in hubs. This will be available and provided to the CPU by the end of March 2005. Does information that you envisage is going to be picked up in the matrix address some of the issues that Ms Doyle has raised this morning?

PN36

MR GRODECK: I think it will address the issues in terms of giving the CPU a clearer picture of exactly why our work is organised in the way that it is, and why we do have this particular issue with regard to that gap of work in the middle of the day. I don't think it is going to change in any way the mechanisms we have gone through to make this decision because, preparing a matrix is not going to change when the work is available. The only thing that can change where the work is available is if there is more work available during those hours.

PN37

THE COMMISSIONER: Well, on that basis, why would you proceed to do the enormous amount of work associated with a matrix that is going to look at the work loadings? Why would you proceed with that at all if in fact you say it is not going to change anything? Are you saying that there is information that will come out from the matrix that you have already acted on or that you are fully aware of the workloads of all the various categories of employees in all the hubs.

PN38

MR GRODECK: Commissioner, what I am saying, and this is part of the discussion we had at the national level, and it was quite a robust discussion about where we were heading with the hubs and what possibilities might happen. We made it very clear to Ms Doyle that with regard to these three particular jobs and when they were vacant, looking at how the work would be restructured, that really there wasn't anything we could do to efficiently and effectively organise that work around full time options.

PN39

But we did indicate that we were prepared in terms of setting up for the future, to look at other possible options that could be open to either ensure that this may not happen again or that indeed we might find some other full time options down the track. As an example Commissioner, one of the things that Ms Doyle has raised is the issue of split shifts. That is an issue that we are prepared to have further discussions with the CPU and I should add that those discussions would have to occur at the national level because we would have to look at our award.

PN40

We would have to look at the way that we employ people but if that is a mechanism for us being able to increase the number of full timers, we are prepared to look at that as a long term solution. That doesn't affect the business decisions that we need to make today with regard to the three vacant full time positions that we have. As I said, based on the current information, based on the current workload, that is how we have made our decisions. The point of that paragraph and the point of our consultation was to say we are happy to enter into ongoing discussions for the future.

PN41

THE COMMISSIONER: All right. Well, that is obviously going to have to occur in relation to a number of issues including split shifts which are not necessarily the priorities you hear and the agreement obviously says that there must be ongoing consultation in relation to those, but in relation to the three positions that are the subject of the extant application, then you are saying that you want to proceed to implement the decision that you have come to.

PN42

MR GRODECK: That is correct.

PN43

THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. I think it might be useful if we moved into conference to discuss some of these issues.

<NO FURTHER PROCEEDINGS RECORDED

LIST OF WITNESSES, EXHIBITS AND MFIs

EXHIBIT #G1 LETTER FROM MR KELLY DATED 03/03/2005 PN29