October 23, 2013
Media Release
Government opens the door for massive cuts to New Zealand Post
The announcement today that the Government is giving New Zealand Post the “flexibility” to slash services to urban and
rural Kiwis is shocking, says the union for postal workers, the EPMU.
“These changes herald massive cuts to postal services,” says Joe Gallagher, the EPMU’s postal industry organiser. “We
are incredibly disappointed with this decision, and how it has been made.”
Changes have been confirmed to NZ Post’s Deed of Understanding which gives the company the power to cut urban deliveries
to three days a week from 2015, to cut rural deliveries to five days a week, and “flexibility in how and where we
provide our services” – which will allows them to replace postal workers with self-service kiosks around the country.
“New Zealand Post is a vital public service which returned a profit of $121 million in 2013. It should be focused on
delivering for Kiwis, not cutting essential services to turn bigger profits.
“We have not had any answer to our questions about the figures this decision is based on, and we have to ask why the
Government has decided to let urban services be cut in half while the rural sector is kept to five days a week.”
The EPMU has been surprised by today’s announcement. It was sent a letter from Minister Amy Adams’ office yesterday
which claimed there was no timeframe for making a decision or announcement on the NZ Post Deed of Understanding.
“It’s not good enough for the Minister of Communications to claim ‘negotiations are still ongoing with New Zealand Post’
and the next day announce she is giving them everything they’ve asked for,” says Joe Gallagher.
“It’s not good enough for the Government to give New Zealand Post a blank cheque to accelerate their job cuts.”
The EPMU’s submission to MBIE over changes to the Deed of Understanding is available at: http://www.epmu.org.nz/assets/Post/EPMU-Submission-NZ-Post-2013.pdf
A selection of quotes from the more than 250 public submissions received by the EPMU is available at: http://www.epmu.org.nz/assets/Post/Public-submissions.pdf
ENDS