Australia Post Exposes Staff to Bomb Danger

A Communications, Electrical & Plumbing Union (CEPU) investigation has found Australia Post negligently exposes its workforce to threats from mail bombs and other
dangerous materials sent through the postal system.

The union says an incident that occurred on Sunday evening in the Sydney West Letters Facility, the largest mail processing center in the Southern Hemisphere, demonstrates Australia Post's complete disregard for the welfare of their employees.

Following the detection of a suspect mail item by an employee, the on duty manager carried the item through the
workplace, passing hundreds of staff.

When they got to the so-called 'isolated area', the manager
instructed an employee to open the suspect item before Police had arrived. Australia Post violated it's own procedures and didn't bother to inform its employees or the police of the threat of a bomb.

CEPU Postal and Telecommunication Branch Secretary Jim Metcher says Australia Post was extremely lucky that on this occasion, the suspect mail item, which was beeping at the time it was discovered, was only a faulty smoke alarm being sent back to the manufacturer.

'Australia Post is claiming that all it's staff have been trained adequately in these procedures, in spite of evidence collected by the CEPU that demonstrates that 190 people out of 200 on a shift at the mail center had not received training,' he says.

"It is clear from what happened on Sunday night that Australia Post management do not take these threats seriously as they continue to place the health and safety of postal workers and the public at a very real risk. The last thing we want is a repeat of the 1998 Canberra Mail Centre Bomb explosion."

In the 1998 mail bomb explosion at the Canberra Mail Centre two postal workers were seriously injured when a letter bomb exploded during the normal sorting of mail.

In an another petty act the time the Union spent investigating this issue has been deemed to be industrial action and employees have had their wages docked for the period of 30 minutes, which they spent talking to the CEPU about the health and safety issue.

For further information

Contact	:	Noel Hester
Phone	:	02 9264 1691
Email	:	noelo@labor.org.au
WWW	:	http://workers.labor.net.au

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