Aust Post sets up warehouse in US

[wide eyed and legless]

I think most people would see the simple analogy with the apple tree and the reduction in workers, profits have to be maintained whether workers have families or not, it isn't the CEO's fault, he has to maintain profits, a business can't afford to become part of a social welfare system.
With the world economy in the state that it is in, and Australia is not immune many jobs have gone and more will be going, profits have to be maintained before people otherwise investors will pull the pin and take their money elsewhere which could lead to more redundancies.
As for the Abbot government has stated it will not sell Australia Post, but if it became a liability then it would be sold off and more jobs will go.

As for Alan Joyce his future is in the hands of the shareholders, his salary has been cut by 40% but the share price from a year ago when it was down to $1.00 has risen steadily to $1.70, so some people seem to have confidence in Qantas

 

[Bridges]

Doesn't delivering mail as an essential service fall into aus posts reason for existing? They can't stop delivering letters as it is no longer profitable. The bit I don't get is that it is a profitable business. Surely those staff can be retrained and put into the areas like parcel delivery that are experiencing growth rather than just given the flick. I'm not sure why the world is obsessed with profit and growth either. Providing a government department is self sufficient, rather than actually losing money it's not part of any social welfare system. I guess that is why I'm not fantastically rich. I don't see how a bloke earning approximately 800 times the average wage can look at himself in the mirror or sleep at night after costing 900 families their livelihood.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Unfortunately Auspost has a service obligation, so not easy to sell off,........so it makes sense to use the Parcel service to subsidies the letter business. Its really only government organisations that do this, think Telecom, state power utilities etc.... they spread the cost accross the board, not charge for actual cost of delivery. If they did that then large city dwellers would get cheap services and those in rural areas would pay dearly...this gets to the point of the rural dwellers not being able to afford services so they go with out whilst their city brothers get cheap services. Mobile phone carriers are a good case in point, Try getting Vodaphone in rural areas....they cherry pick high density areas, and dont care about the rest

This then turns into an "Us v Them" thing in society.


And that always ends badly

 

[malt and barley blues]

Australia Post does retrain its staff, I did read somewhere that 2,000 or more had been retrained and they do employ around 36,000 people with 10,000
contractors and franchisees on top of that, of course the mail has to be delivered, but as Ducatiboy pointed out 1 billion fewer letters are being delivered since 2008, so they have to keep making a decent profit to cover the areas where they are losing and they will keep making cutbacks where they can in those loss making areas.

 

[manticle]

Simple analogy is exactly right WEAL. Simple, dehumanising and deliberately ignoring the real effect on individuals. Looks great on a graph though.
I get that as a business model but just because it is that way doesn't mean it should be.
I know we are in fundamental disagreement on this.

 

[DU99]

See how log it last's before we get the excuse for a "price rise".

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

From here

http://auspost.com.au/about-us/increase-to-basic-postage-rate.html


Australia Post has only increased the BPR three times over the past 22 years, with the last in 2010. During this period, the price of a basic stamp in Australia has increased by 33 per cent (from 45 cents to 60 cents), whereas CPI has increased in the same period by more than 70 per cent, and most operating costs by over 100 per cent.

Thats not to bad in my book

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Got a shock last night, saw some letters on the kitchen table waiting to go into the mail, the stamps had a 2mm margin around them, the stamps had already been franked, they had been cut off previously posted letters and glued onto the new letters, had a go at my wife for being so stupid as to expect the mail to get through, she laughed and told me she was posting them for the old lady across the road and that she had been doing this for years. I wonder how many other people are doing this?

 

[klangers]

Got a shock last night, saw some letters on the kitchen table waiting to go into the mail, the stamps had a 2mm margin around them, the stamps had already been franked, they had been cut off previously posted letters and glued onto the new letters, had a go at my wife for being so stupid as to expect the mail to get through, she laughed and told me she was posting them for the old lady across the road and that she had been doing this for years. I wonder how many other people are doing this?

My Grandfather did this for decades.

 

[Airgead]

My missus checks all the incoming mail and if the stamp hasn't been visibly franked (franking missed the stamp or something) she will soak it off and re-use. Her mother did it as well.

 

[HBHB]

Crazy thing is, that the small letters segment lost a heap of money, so they jack up the parcel post prices to make more profit, on what is an already profitable part of their core business.

Stuff that, jack up the price of a postage stamp so the user pays and leave alone what already works well. If that means less unsolicited "Postage Paid" junk mail in the letterbox each day then so be it.

 

[Spiesy]

My missus checks all the incoming mail and if the stamp hasn't been visibly franked (franking missed the stamp or something) she will soak it off and re-use. Her mother did it as well.

And people wonder why the service is no longer profitable.

I really don't get people sometimes.

 

[peas_and_corn]

I don't see how they really can separate how much letter delivery loses vs how much parcel delivery makes since the guys who deliver letters also deliver the smaller packages. The other month I had a postie on a bike at my front door asking for my signature.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Its called "Accounting"

 

[DU99]

:icon_offtopic: what amazes me with Australia Post.is the prices they charge compared to some couriers.and the normal post takes about the same time as express post in some cases..most of the parcel services are contracted/tendered out