Yesterday the Union was contacted by members across the country after they began receiving correspondence from Australia Post titled “Partial Work Ban Notice to Employees – Non Payment”.
Members are furious because they know Post is, yet again, taking an unnecessarily harsh legal stance, rather than dealing with your concerns and resolving this dispute.
The CEPU understands that under the Fair Work Act, if employees seek to observe a protected industrial action ban employers have a choice to:
§ Withhold partial pay for a period of time in which a ban is observed; or
§ Withhold the entire pay of an employee for their normal day of work, even if the employee is only observing a ban for as little as an hour.
So it is absolutely clear:
§ Australia Post has – of its own choosing – opted to take the harsher option; refusing to pay our members any pay whatsoever for a day they present for work and observe a ban for as little as an hour.
This is an important point, because in Post’s letter to employees, they state:
“Under the Fair Work Act Australia Post cannot pay staff who take industrial action.” (Rod McDonald, letter to employees, 9 December)
This is misleading; in relation to partial work bans, Australia Post has a choice that allows them to partially deduct your wages – and Post chose the tougher option.
They know what they’re doing; they want to bully people into not following the ban or provoke a walkout by staff – because, as members have been saying, why would you work for Post for free, its tough enough when you’re drawing a wage!
If Australia Post is serious about avoiding mail disruptions leading into Christmas, they seriously need to re-think their stand on this issue.
OVERTIME – DON’T BE MISLED AGAIN BY POST
In Australia Post’s letter to employees they said:
“Where the CEPU notify Australia Post that there will be a ban on overtime and staff refuse to work rostered overtime, they will lose pay”
This is misleading. If you perform your normal hours of work, but elect to follow the overtime ban – Post cannot deduct a cent of your normal pay because you won’t perform overtime.
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