Good morning Lyndal,
"Why should Australia post have any more issues than any other large company that has a mix of employees and sub contractors from all walks of life?"
The question feeds into the latter part of your post, which I agree with. AP is wholly owned by Govco (this is a bad start) and is trying to compete, under very restrictive legislation applying to itself, with some very dynamic and high tech, service oriented private companies. I don't think there would be too many that would disagree with the thought that AP is ill managed and that resource allocation is poorly delivered.
For quite a few years now there has been high tension and a lot of animosity between management and staff, well above what you would ordinarily expect and vastly exceeding all industry benchmarks and values. And I guess it's little wonder when disgruntled employees are looking for a measly $20 per week pay rise and they see a few years back, when AP made a rare operating profit of 40mil, or something like that, and over half of it was written down to employment packages for just 6 executives.
So, there is a lot of unrest. This is just an example of much more including a certain culture of serfdom when it comes to the treatment of staff by executives. This unrest plays into the ability of AP to be truly productive and efficient with their processes.
We then toss into the mix, with all the ineptitudes we've become so accustomed to with Govco managed agencies of utilities, a highly unionised workforce, at big odds (combative) with management, and the work environment becomes putrid and cooperation through all levels breaks down. This is something, in my experience, that just doesn't happen in private enterprise, at least nowhere to the extent as within AP.
Many employees, especially the severely disgruntled do all that they can to throw a spanner in the works and there are many cases of very deliberate sabotage. We do read about some, just some in the newspapers. That's about as far as I can go here. The whole environment is toxic and not dissimilar to the worst of the worst, that being Qld Health.
As I said before, this is just the tip of the iceberg. But when you consider this very brief background, with the knowledge that AP has about 20,000 vehicles on the road and employs up to 50,000 people, I'm sure you can see the differences between it and most other companies, not Govco owned. Take into account too that Govco being the employee, employees indeed are from all walks of life and different ethnic backgrounds. Many do not speak good English, are not well educated and do not have a good work ethic. They also soon become encapsulated within the influence of serial agitators and unless they, all AP employees for that matter, are busted for something fairly serious - stealing as a servant etc., they remain within the system as just another piece of conditioned and disgruntled dead wood. Things are very unhappy just now, in what should be booming times, with AP projecting massive operating losses and 'leaking' information to the affect that it will be shedding a further 2,000 jobs. Who really knows. This could also have something to do with AP's current push to franchise as much of its operation considered feasible to do so.
Private enterprise (read other companies) simply does not have, or more correctly will not entertain similar issues and they are driven to make a profit. They do not have the comfort and surety of the public purse.
Answerability? Lyndal, I think we all know what that looks like with any Govco utility. And, they do bow to unions, not so much with wage demands, but certainly with conditions and privileges.
Theres an old saying, 'sack half and make the other half work' and I'm nit suggesting thus is the case with AP, but it may apply in some measure. I mention it though because that was the statement made by a Toll executive a little while back when speaking publicly about AP. he almost caused a riotous walk-out in his own unionised yard, but he did manage to hold his job.
I probably went 'the long way around' but the reasons I've given, and just some brief uncomplicated knew, are why AP is quite distinctly different to most other companies. There are many other reasons, all quite convaluted and not for here.
Melina.
