Why such a focus on mail, says union

CUTTING a ‘‘hell of a lot of jobs’’ is not the way to go about solving declining mail volumes, the Postal Workers Union president says.

John Maynard said NZ Post’s announcement yesterday that its workforce could reduce by up to 2000 would only accelerate the problem.

He had fielded many text messages and calls from concerned postal workers who felt their morale had been ‘‘deeply undermined’’.

‘‘There’s this clash of culture, people in the mail centres and the posties do it as a public service, they like doing a good job. People are not happy.’’

He said it was good workers had been given two years’ notice but it had confused them at the same time, because they thought job cuts would occur straightaway if the situation was such a crisis.

There was definitely an issue of declining mail volumes and it was fair enough the company tried to solve the problem.

‘‘But it’s not fair enough that you do it in a way that’s going to accelerate declining mail volumes.’’

Mr Maynard was meeting with NZ Post at the end of the month, at which point he would emphasise the need to look at alternatives. He believed it could maintain its delivery services using more motorcy- have to come from the Government or the NZ Superannuation Fund.

A partial sale, even if it were allowed to happen, would hurt the bank because its customers did not want to see any foreign ownership. ‘‘What we might gain in capital we’d likely lose in customers.’’

Over time the group wanted to sell most of its Post Shops and have them operated privately, including as ‘‘stores within stores’’.

This would lower the cost to NZ Post and potentially extend operat- cles and a combination of other ternatives, such as electric bikes.

At the very least, these methods should be trialled before simply axing 2000 jobs. ‘‘The company doesn’t look like it’s got any fight. It’s being fatalistic . . . it should be on the front foot about this sort of stuff.’’

Posters around NZ Post offices told employees to ‘‘Raise the Bar’’ and ‘‘Go for it!’’, but the messages seemed moot now.

‘‘People were doing this sort of stuff, going the extra mile. But it’s going to undermine people’s confidence in post, that stuff will take the full three days [to deliver] when stuff could have come out sooner.’’ ing hours.

The EPMU union has complained about the way the changes are being communicated, including a lack of notice about last week’s announcement.

Sir Michael said NZ Post had only several hours’ notice itself, and most staff were offsite. This meant many staff heard the news through the media.

Communications Minister Amy Adams would not comment beyond a statement in which she said yesterday was ‘‘obviously’’ a

al- difficult day for NZ Post workers, but that technology made change inevitable.

Prime Minister John Key said the changes would take place over five years, equating to 400 jobs a year, although Sir Michael said the reductions would be made over three years from 2014.

Labour leader David Cunliffe said the changes would hit like a ‘‘sledgehammer’’. Labour would stand beside the workers, he said, but did not propose an alternative strategy.