The following represents the present position on the SBD Dispute given the further talks between your CEPU representatives and Australia Post senior management on Friday, 4 November 2011.
These talks focused on the information gathered from the three Working Groups covering:
1. Front Letter Carrier (FLC)
2. Safety
3. SBD/Single Bundle Delivery comparison time trials/audits.
Present Criterion at this stage for Initial SBD Rollback
Australia Post has agreed for the process to commence for existing SBD rounds to convert back to single bundle delivery. The agreed criterion for SBD rounds to be converted back to single bundle delivery is where an existing SBD round:
- contains more than 50% business delivery points or has sufficient density (high amount of units)
- receives less than 70% sequenced mail on average; or
- where it is believed that a particular round is determined (jointly assessed between Australia Post and Union) where SBD is not considered the most effective methodology
It is estimated that approximately 300-500 present SBD rounds will initially be converted back to single bundle delivery as a result of this agreed process to date.
94% Service Performance Standards linked to Wage Increases – Unacceptable Missort Levels
Time trials/audits at both Alexandria Delivery Facility and Leightonfield Delivery Facility highlighted the unacceptable volume of missorts within machine sequenced mail. An average of 30-40 missorts per day is occurring on each SBD round representing around 4% of the average round mail volume.
The Union has highlighted to Australia Post that the missort mail items is at unacceptable levels and is contributing to the failure of meeting the present 94% mail delivery service performance standards which in turn threatens conditional wage increases being provided for all employees under the Fair Work Agreement 2010 (EBA7).
It was agreed that further quality checks, involving the sampling of around 10 SBD rounds across two Delivery Facilities, will be conducted in each State over the next two weeks commencing from Monday 14 November. These daily checks will involve both union and management representatives verifying the level of sequenced mail missort items occurring on SBD rounds.
This important missort level sampling will determine whether agreement can be reached for further SBD rounds to be rolled back within the agreed criterion mentioned above and converted to single bundle delivery.
The Union’s position during the talks is that single bundle delivery automatically removes the level of present missort mail items by merging machine sequenced and residue mail into the V-Sort frame. This will then remove the threat to employees of not receiving conditional pay increases due to Australia Post’s failure in maintaining 94% service performance standards. Importantly this will also further assist Australia Post in maintaining an on time, quality mail delivery service to the community.
Safety
The union has continually raised safety issues with Australia Post. There will be further investigation into SBD injury incidents, further review of SBD delivery on hilly terrain and joint analysis of information gathered on all present SBD rounds with the post 6-week implementation survey.
Members are encouraged to report any SBD related injury with their HSR and local manager and register the injury via the P400 incident report form and to retain a copy of such form.
Front letter Carrier (FLC)
The Rockhampton Working Group appears to have addressed all the identified issues associated with the FLC such as the FLC rubbing on posties’ knees, the speedo not being visible up to 50kph and the difficult reading angle of the bag.
Further testing is being conducted to satisfy FLC matters of concern.
NO Further Training or Roll out of SBD Remains
There will be a series of further assessments of SBD compared with V-sort merging and Single Bundle Delivery over the coming weeks involving the union. Regular meetings are being convened at different stages of these further assessments to discuss and determine the key areas for further consideration in reaching agreement for existing SBD rounds to be rolled back to single bundle delivery.
In the meantime agreement has been reached between your Union and Australia Post where there will be no further roll out of SBD training or implementation of further rounds to be converted from existing single bundle delivery to SBD rounds at this stage of the SBD Dispute talks.
Important Recognition of Union Representatives Involved in this Complex SBD Dispute
The Union acknowledges once again that delivery members are performing SBD under sufferance but by doing so they are contributing to the important verification of factual information gathered to demonstrate that SBD is an inefficient, costly and unsafe work practice.
The Working Groups and information gathering could not happen if it wasn’t for the hard work put in by your NSW officials and local union representatives involved in the work group exercises with gathering the accurate information to allow for talks that are now progressing and genuinely resolving this dispute affecting all delivery members across the nation.
The union is very appreciative of the work done to date. This important work will continue to help and progress final resolution with this SBD dispute in the long term interests of all delivery members.
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