More NZ Post jobs lost – and moving overseas

New Zealand Post’s “Lean Centres of Excellence” proposal boils down to cutting their finance team to the bone and shipping the jobs off to the Philippines.

The proposal, which was announced to staff today, involves transferring financial services work – including payroll and accounts payable – to Converga, a subsidiary based in Manila.

“Qualified Kiwi workers are being thrown on the scrapheap in pursuit of bigger and bigger profits at NZ Post,” says Joe Gallagher, EPMU organiser for the postal industry.

In mid-2014, 47 jobs were made redundant in the financial services team.

“Post are trying to say there aren’t enough qualified people in New Zealand to run their financial services – because they’ve already cut the team down to the bone,” says Joe Gallagher.

“Once again we’re seeing arguments about ‘efficiency’ and ‘improving service’ – but we know it’s really about the bottom line. Case study after case study shows that offshoring doesn’t deliver better service – just short-term financial gains.

“It’s simply unbelievable that a state-owned enterprise would pursue a strategy of offshoring secure, high-skilled Kiwi jobs.

We can’t continue to lose these kinds of high-value jobs to overseas, low-cost labour models. The government has a responsibility to provide a jobs strategy and a pathway for SOEs to create secure, sustainable work for New Zealanders.”

ENDS

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