Inside Child Poverty New Zealand I saw on tonights news that 2000 jobs are to be cut from the Post Office. The reason ? John Key told us, was technology. People dont write as many letters anymore,often communicating by email and txt instead. True. So ...(runs the Neoliberal logic) ..when a business is losing profit like NZ Post you have to let people go. Not so true. Maybe, if you start from the premise that people are more important than profit you might come up with a different solution to firing them when sales go down. Take Posties. Traditionally theyve just delivered mail. What if they Picked Up mail as well? Half the hassle of using the Post Office is actually going there. What if your letter box had two compartments - pick up and drop off? A lot of people work from home these days. Times valuable, and burning up petrol to drive to the Post Office all adds to the problems of the planet Using smart technology Posties could sell you stamps, provide courier envelopes and pick up small packages. I dont want to go to the post office and scan stuff when a Posties with a hand scanner and a very clever piece of existing cellphone software ( that I happen to know a lot about )could do that job. This is a Government owned enterprise. The Government could actually be leading the way with this kind of social business thinking . Creating profit by keeping people gainfully employed. Running a country is after all different to running a company- has different obligations. Technology doesnt have to make people redundant. If Posties picked up mail as well as dropping it off, wed be back to a 5 day service in no time , the profit line would go up and 2000 families would not become a welfare problem Bryan Bruce
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 02:05:10 +0000