Postal Workers Union Says NZ Post May Be Breaching Its Public Contract With Its New ‘Return To Sender’ Policy

NZ Post has upset posties with a new instruction that they must ‘return to sender’ all mail addressed to the street address of institutions which already pay for a separate PO Box or Private Bag number and which have not also previously been receiving street deliveries from NZ Post. This includes hospitals, government departments, Courts, medical centres, lawyers, accountants and rest homes.

The Union has been unsuccessful in its attempts to have NZ Post abandon a policy that results in such important mail being returned to sender.

The Union believes the company’s return to sender policy is to prepare the company for trying to lay off all of NZ Post’s 700 mail delivery employees and having the mail delivered instead by couriers who, working as contractors and not as employees, would not be redirecting the mail to customers’ preferred PO Box or Private Bag address.

The Postal Workers Union says that NZ Post’s new policy may be in breach of its public contract. The company’s own Postal Users’ Guide says that mail will be delivered to ground floor street addresses of business premises where there is access to a locked mail box, a letter slot, a reception desk or a shop counter close to the main entrance.

However, NZ Post is now claiming that it can decline an application for a street address delivery if the approval of the new delivery point would jeopardise the commercial sustainability of NZ Post. The Union does not accept that the routine, efficient delivery of mail to for instance a government department or hospital would jeopardise the commercial sustainability of NZ Post.

NZ Post is now demanding of posties that all mail that has been addressed to the street addresses of Government Departments, Police, Courts, Local Authorities, hospitals, and businesses which have not also been receiving street deliveries must not be delivered to the street addresses of the institutions but be returned to sender.

Until the new policy announcement, the posties redirected any institution or business mail addressed to the street addresses to the appropriate box or bag numbers from a box and bag register held in the Postal Delivery Branches for every postie run.

Under NZ Post’s new policy, mail clearly addressed to, for example, a named patient at the street address of a hospital is “returned to sender” because, as NZ Post has previously told incredulous union members, people need to learn how to address mail correctly, including mail they want to send to hospital patients.

Some posties are now defying the management instruction to “return to sender” as they are concerned that important mail will otherwise not reach the hospitals, schools, government departments and businesses that rely on receiving correspondence from clients.

Posties are also concerned that sending customers who have paid the correct postage and addressed their item to an easily identified address, and who expect the item to be delivered in accordance with NZ Post’s public contract with customers, are finding the item “returned to sender” - no delivery service provided by NZ Post and no refund offered for the postage they have paid.

A NZ Post spokesperson was quoted by reporters in January this year as saying that redirecting mail to a PO Box or Bag number is “a hugely time intensive process”. Union members have told the Union that statement is nonsense - the process is in fact very quick and efficient. They say that what is very inefficient and time-consuming is the process of stamping up and returning the mail to the sender. They say NZ Post’s new process is costly to the company, demoralising for workers who are engaged in a service industry, and damaging to public institutions, businesses and public services that rely on receiving correspondence from clients.

The Union says that NZ Post appears to have lost sight of its essential function to provide New Zealanders with a mail service with the integrity, reliability and trust-worthiness required of a publicly owned institution. The Union says that NZ Post has unilaterally removed part of its essential service with disregard for the actual and potentially critical disruption to relationships at all levels of society caused by NZ Post failing in its statutory duty under the State Owned Enterprises Act to have regard for the interests of the community.

Posties are concerned that they could find themselves the focus of the anger and frustration of both the senders and receivers of mail when mail addressed in good faith, with the correct postage, is being returned to sender.

The Union will be defending with vigour any posties who, continuing to redirect mail to the recipients’ preferred address, or having insisted on the mail getting through by delivering mail to the street addresses of box or bag holders, may then face disciplinary action for defying NZ Post’s instructions.

The Postal Workers Union advises of four interrelated events this month:

1. The increasing impact of NZ Post’s ‘return to sender’ policy.

2. An imminent statement by the Minister for State Owned Enterprises following MBIE’s November and December incomplete consultation process as to whether NZ Post can stop delivering to individual household letterboxes, and instead to deliver to letterbox clusters or so-called ‘communal points’.

3. The Postal Workers Union case in the Employment Relations Authority in Auckland that NZ Post failed to comply with the Employment Relations Act and the Collective Agreement with the Union when in June last year it unilaterally announced the progressive layoff of all 700 of its delivery service employees without justifying the reasons for the layoffs, and without honouring its Collective Agreement obligations with the Postal Workers Union to minimise redundancies and to consider alternative employment opportunities.

4. The Postal Workers Union case in the Employment Court in Wellington beginning the week of 24 February seeking a declaration from the Court that two of NZ Post’s contract courier union members are, under section 6 of the Employment Relations Act, ‘by the real nature of the relationship’ with NZ Post, in fact employees and not contractors.

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