Postal Workers Union Calls On NZ Post To Abandon Its New ‘Return To Sender’ Policy

Elvis Presley’s song for NZ Post chairperson’s mail:
“Return to sender. Address unknown.”

Any letters of complaint about NZ Post’s new ‘return to sender’ policy addressed to NZ Post’s chairperson Dame Paula Rebstock at NZ Post House in Waterloo Quay Wellington will be ‘returned to sender’ unread. A new policy being enforced by NZ Post management has resulted in many hundreds of letters throughout the country being returned to the senders daily.

Posties are being instructed that any mail addressed to the street addresses of businesses and institutions which also have a P O Box or a Private Bag must be returned to sender.

NZ Post claims that the mail forwarding service for the redirecting of mail from street addresses to PO Boxes and Private Bags is no longer viable. The Postal Workers Union says it is NZ Post preparing to lay off all its 700 mail service employees and have the mail delivered instead by contract couriers who will not be able to provide the vital redirection service currently performed by posties.

Even though the sender will have paid the correct postage and provided a clear, and in most cases an easily deliverable address, under NZ Post’s new policy their letter is to be returned to sender and, as Elvis Presley laments, “keeps coming back”.

Mail addressed to Dame Paula Rebstock at NZ Post’s prominent NZ Post House street address on Waterloo Quay in Wellington will be returned to sender - just the same as the returning to sender of other important mail addressed to the street addresses of Government Departments, Police, Courts, universities, schools and boarding schools, lawyers, accountants, hospitals and hospital patients, retirement villages and many other businesses and institutions. All this mail is also being stamped up “Return to sender” as if, in the words of Elvis Presley’s song it is, “address unknown”.

In their efforts to see that ‘the mail gets through’ many posties continue to defy NZ Post and its new policy. Instead of returning the mail to the senders as instructed, the posties are risking disciplinary action from NZ Post by trying to deliver as much mail as possible to the street addresses of businesses and institutions as clearly shown on the address panels of the envelopes.

If Dame Paula wants to be sure to get all her mail she will need to instruct NZ Post to immediately abandon its new ‘return to sender’ policy and to comply with its obligations under the State Owned Enterprises Act - “having regard for the interests of the community in which it operates …”. The Union says it is clearly not in “the interests of the community” to have NZ Post continuing to return to sender uncounted thousands of mail items which are clearly addressed and with the correct postage.

In the meantime, mail addressed to Dame Paula Rebstock, NZ Post Chairperson, NZ Post House, Waterloo Quay, Wellington, will, under NZ Post’s new policy, be ‘marked up’, echoing the words of Elvis Presley’s song – “Return to Sender, address unknown”.

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