The Postal Workers Union is concerned a new directive from NZ Post will mean less mail is getting where it needs to go.<\/p>\n
Letters addressed to a company’s physical address when a PO box is available will be returned to sender, with workers no longer allowed to look up the box number and replace it on the envelope.<\/p>\n
NZ Post chief customer officer Bryan Dobson said that was “a hugely time intensive process”, and has told workers to stop doing so.<\/p>\n
“Most big businesses, government agencies, shops etc have both a physical address (where the building is located; and not usually eligible for mail delivery) and a postal address (usually a PO box where their mail gets sent),” Dobson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“NZ Post will no longer be offering this free readdressing service, and will instead be asking New Zealanders to address their mail to an address that qualifies for mail delivery.”<\/p>\n
This might mean people needed to look up a mailing address to make sure letters were safely received.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged this change might be inconvenient for customers, but it was part of a raft of changes “in response to New Zealanders choosing to communicate more online”.<\/p>\n
But the union said it represented a “downgrade in services”, with the focus no longer on getting mail where it needed to go.<\/p>\n
Co-national president John Maynard said: “This is government departments, hospitals, resthomes – and we’ve been getting a lot of feedback from the posties around the country, they are very unhappy about the loss of service to the people.”<\/p>\n
He said it would also affect high-profile mail recipients like MPs – any mail to an elected official would now need to be addressed to Parliament’s private bag, rather than “Parliament Buildings, Molesworth Street, Wellington” or “The Beehive”.<\/p>\n
“There would be very few constituents writing to their MPs who would know that Parliament Buildings has a private bag,” Maynard said.<\/p>\n
“We can see the point that, perhaps if a company’s got a box number, make sure you advertise it, but there will always be somebody that’s gone past, didn’t realise there was a box number, and wanted to send mail to that place – I’ve done it myself.”<\/p>\n
He was concerned it would result in double-handling, when those returned letters again came across NZ Post workers desks when the sender gave it another try.<\/p>\n
More changes were on the way.<\/p>\n