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5 from the wing on debut
Joined: 27 May 2016
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| David wrote: | Sorry to get all commie about this, but when did anyone here last get a $5k bonus – for many people, 1–2 months’ wages – for their (I’m sure no less valuable or strenuous) work? How much does the average frontline post office worker get a year, and why can’t they each get a little bonus of $100 or so (which would probably actually mean more to them) if the executives have excess money to splash around? Or maybe customers could have a few cents shaved off their postage fees?
Sure $5k might be loose change to people already in that upper echelon, but maybe let’s not normalise a culture of lavish gifts in the workplace for people who are already swimming in money, and perhaps instead encourage a culture of frugality and humility at the top end. Call it small-mindedness, envy or whatever, but in a society with massive wealth gaps and a declining standard of living, any resentment about expensive watches being handed out in a boardroom is not at all unreasonable in my view. Extravagant watches are a great symbol of excess because we all know that nobody actually needs one, but some people nonetheless get them as random bonuses while others in this country can’t afford essentials. So perhaps we need to be "bullying" these people a great deal more, and not be getting the violin out when the finger of fate lands on them... |
Yes, I would call it small mindedness. When I was an employee I received far larger bonuses than that and I now pay my staff far larger bonuses than that. If they earn them. It's not paid out just for being there.
Holgate was running a large business and attempting to keep both parts of it profitable. The employees that bring in the business are valuable. Far more valuable than those employees who are performing the more mundane and less sophisticated tasks. Some people may not like that, but that's life.
Holgate presided over a very successful period for Australia Post and by not agreeing to sell off the parcel division she has kept the mail division alive, retaining jobs for many. Remember, Australia Post is a business whose aim is to make profit for its shareholders. It is not a government department. It competes with private sector businesses and has to be commercially successful to survive.
You mention watches being handed out in a boardroom, but that's not my understanding of what occurred. Are you saying that directors decided to give watches to themselves, and not to employees? |
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5 from the wing on debut
Joined: 27 May 2016
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| One other thing. The "average frontline post office workers" are mostly the owners of those businesses. Those owners are generally very supportive of Holgate and angry about what has occurred, as they know how much she has done to keep their businesses alive. If she had bowed to pressure to sell the parcel division, they would most likely be unemployed. |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Well, yes and no – the franchisees themselves have employees working under them, and just because a lot of owners feel (given what you write above, understandable) gratitude towards Holgate it doesn't mean that it's going to be a 100% lovefest towards a CEO who probably doesn't even know most of her admirer-underlings by name.
Personally, I'm bewildered by some of the narratives surrounding this – take this op-ed from today's Guardian, in which our comrade-in-arms is now seen as leading the fight against the patriarchy (so much for class consciousness in the left-liberal press!).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/13/christine-holgate-was-targeting-the-australia-post-chairman-scott-morrison-and-the-patriarchy
| Quote: | Holgate says she was hustled out of a job she was good at – an experience so humiliating, so scarifying, that she felt suicidal. “I was lying on the bathroom floor at this time in my life,” Holgate volunteered at one point during her evidence.
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This particular conundrum brought us back, inevitably, to the watches and questions of judgment. The purchase of the watches “was an error of judgment made in good faith from an otherwise highly effective CEO”, the chairman said.
Given we’d arrived at errors of judgment, the primary judgment on trial on Tuesday was Morrison’s. The question Holgate posed implicitly during her carefully choreographed mic drop was: “Was it worth it?”
Was it worth it prime minister – bringing this corporate high flyer to my bathroom floor – just because I lacked a certain fluency in the unwritten rules of politics? |
Heaven forbid that corporate high flyers experience the trauma of losing their jobs for making a bad decision! Pass me the sick bag, please.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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5 from the wing on debut
Joined: 27 May 2016
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| Both Albanese and Morrison should have said "nothing to see here, move on" but they both thought it would be more popular to pretend to be outraged. |
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eddiesmith 
Lets get ready to Rumble
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
Location: Lexus Centre
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Of course they do, usually with the response it’s not the oppositions responsibility if the government agrees with them.
I was really bored the day it broke and was stick watching question time. The opposition went on and on and on about what a disgrace it was and demanding action be taken.
Then when action gets taken that had bipartisan support, people change history yet again and make it all about Morrison.
Much like how opposition to SSM was from both sides, yet its since been framed as held up by LNP and widely supported by the ALP... |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ That's not total revisionism, as the Liberal Party (first under Abbott, then through the conservative-dominated backbench under Turnbull) did pull out all the stops to stop it from happening and basically deserve the entirety of the blame for drawing out the process in the last few years before it was legislated. But it is also true that Labor had a chance to legislate it in 2007–2013 when the majority of the population were already onside, and flubbed it.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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We do know Morrison is not just a sexist bully here but a coward. Just apologise and say you got it wrong. When this first happened I thought she was guilty and corrected the error of my ways. Between Scotty from Marketing and moi one of us is a lying cnut and it’s not me.
Scotty got it wrong but is not man enough to admit it.
She was certainly thrown under the bus. Hope she wins a huge pay out for the suffering she has had to endure because of a Liberal Party dysfunctional board and because of the behaviour of Scotty from Marketing
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| David wrote: | | Sorry to get all commie about this, but when did anyone here last get a $5k bonus – . |
5FTWOD has already responded well but you would be surprised.
I used to get more than that in the early 2000's nearly 20 years ago.
A surprising number of people in the Victorian Public sector had performance bonuses as part of their remuneration, including in Public Health when I was there only a couple of years ago. . I know because I used to write the contracts in my health service, arrange payment of the bonuses and do the 6 monthly report to the VPSC.
That's real public money being spent.
And yes, Albanese is a typical hypocritical pig, (he facially really does remind me of a pig) he's also Morrison's biggest ally. Albanese is to Scomo what the Victorian Liberal Party is to Dandrews.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| David wrote: | | Well, yes and no – the franchisees themselves have employees working under them, and just because a lot of owners feel (given what you write above, understandable) gratitude towards Holgate it doesn't mean that it's going to be a 100% lovefest towards a CEO who probably doesn't even know most of her admirer-underlings by name. |
How many of those people do you think there are? Aus Post isn't a milk bar where the CEO would know every employee by name. There's over 75,000 people in the extended workforce which includes the LPO's and over 4000 post offices.
They made $53 Million profit and paid a dividend to their shareholder, the Government, of $21 Million in 2020 yet we're hung up over $20k in 4 watches for people who probably deserved more?
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
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David, we’re in the wrong business. My oldest got more than a $10K bonus: good employers reward their staff. My daughter has been well remunerated for achievements (making $ and saving $ for her employer)
This works down the line through each store she manages: achieve sales goals and get rewarded.
I get party pies and a cold asapargus spear in a rolled white bread sanga with the crusts cut off and a cup of international roast coffee in a polystyrene cup when I go over and above 😉
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
You work fixed hours, you get overtime when you work more hours regardless of how well you perform. Your daughter doesn't get overtime, she gets a bonus based on performance.
Ideological difference, remuneration difference.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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watt price tully
Joined: 15 May 2007
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| stui magpie wrote: | ^
You work fixed hours, you get overtime when you work more hours regardless of how well you perform. Your daughter doesn't get overtime, she gets a bonus based on performance.
Ideological difference, remuneration difference. |
It’s not really apples v apples though. My overtime is shift replacement. Much as I would like to sell some people with a Mental Health concerns I can’t produce more so to speak: some people take minutes some take hours.
My daughter works on profit and how much she sells etc. She has targets to achieve with respect to budgets. We have contact times etc but it’s not quite the same.
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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So, am I right to conclude here that Holgate is highly competent to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and two major success stories and the rest is so pathetically irrelevant you wonder why it's even a story?
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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5 from the wing on debut
Joined: 27 May 2016
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| That seems to be an accurate summary of the reality of the facts of the situation, but it is being talked about because two politicians stuck their noses in because they thought there was political benefit to them to do so. |
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