You may have gathered from the news recently that Australia Post and us, workers have been spared from the widely expected de-regulation of the postal industry. It was a fairly clever bit of propaganda, but that's all it was. Let's get a few points clear, beginning with what the media announcements did not cover and finishing with a discussion of why anarchists might support the retention of a state monopoly.

The current further round of deregulation has been put off for two years until July 2000. With that announcement, words are carefully chosen that stated: "There will be no closures of country facilities or job losses due to the July 2000 deregulation."

With regard to the country facilities, they failed to say that most country centres will be reduced from full sorting centres to mere "hubs". That is, they will do relatively unskilled mail preparation work instead of full sorting the mail, then they send it out to a mail centre for the new machinery. Many jobs will go. This is the fate of facilities at Gosford, Wollongong, Albury, Kempsey, Casino and maybe Dubbo. This is in NSW and a similar cut will probably happen in other states.

As to the closure of post offices - already hundreds have either been closed or privatised across Australia. This is obvious both in the capitals and in the bush. Many more will go in the future with job losses and a reduction in services. But note well - this is not due to the deregulation announcement. Oh no! It is due to the already-in-progress industry restructure!!!

Right now A.P. is rolling out a $300 million "Network Renewal" program. This involves a new generation of job-destroying machinery and a large number of new "human relations" systems to go with it. The new Optical Character Recognition (OCR) machines will not only read written or typed lines of address. And connected to the OCR's will be a video link so that letters, which the machine cannot read on the first and second scan, will be encoded remotely by part time workers chained to a computer screeen.

The union has done deals with AP to smooth the introduction of these job-destroying processes. Why ? With a massive amalgamation of unions into the CEPU, the officials feel there can be no rank and file threat to their positions. Also they are capitalists. Obvious isn't it? They actually believe that AP should be "upgraded" and made more efficient. Labor Party hacks like that lot are out to improve capitalism, and damn any workers who get in the way.

The other lot of restructuring deals with work systems: fixed shifts, team work, a bonus pay system, "spill and fill" for new job positions and all that with about a 20-30% reduction in staff. Do more with less is AP's (and the union's) motto.

So in the end, with the new machinery and work processes, those who are chucked out will end up on a scrap heap and those who stay will work in misery.

But why should anarchists support a state owned monopoly? Well, the rationale for the deregulation is not to break-up a monopoly but to feed out the profitable sections to other big business conglomerates. The other side of the rationale is to break down the wages and conditions of a highly unionised work force.

Their arguments are capitalist arguments not anarchist arguments about workers' control and freedom.

Mario Mantolini

In Victoria, AP management is engaging in a wave of victimisation against union activists. On 10/7/98 posties at Reservoir walked off the job in solidarity with their Postal Manager and CEPU liaison officer for the Greensborough network who was suspended from duties. He had protested an area management decision to not carry over mail and order it to be delivered, resulting in posties working over 12 hours in a day.

As a result of attendance at a shop stewards meeting regarding EBA4, 25 shop stewards were given a warning counselling. Union officials disregarded the instruction of the meeting and have refused to protect the workers who attended by calling stop works at mail centres.

At Fitzroy Delivery Centre, a worker had an unfair conduct review imposed. It was overturned, following fellow workers threatening a walkout over the issue.