By Pam Graham
Thousands of New Zealand Post workers have endured mistakes in their pay since April last year from a system provided by the same company that is mucking up teachers' pay.
EPMU national industry organiser Joe Gallagher told NZ Newswire that problems with the pay system at NZ Post provided by Talent2 are ongoing more than 18 months after it went live on April 1, 2011.
Australian company Talent2 this week apologised for its botched $26 million Novopay system which has enraged teachers, schools and the Government.
Mr Gallagher said problems with the Talent2 system at NZ Post begged the question of why the company got another Government contract.
He said Talent2 got the NZ Post contract in 2010 and there had been a multitude of issues with it since it went live in April 2011.
"I don't think what it was proposed as and what NZ Post have got are the same thing," he said.
He said NZ Post workers had been over-paid and under-paid. There had been thousands of mistakes from a system that was not fit for purpose.
"I could go on all day about it," he said.
NZ Post had worked constructively with the union to help workers but it has taken a long time to improve the system and software rewrites were required.
"It's ongoing. It's been extremely stressful for people," he said.
"I have the utmost sympathy for teachers. We've constantly brought the issues to the attention of NZ Post and the Department of Labour."
The Talent2 system at NZ Post had involved the centralisation of a regional pay system.
Mr Gallagher said NZ Post had improved systems for fixing incorrect payments and had taken Talent2 to task.
"They've been on the mat over it," he said.
Labour has called for Associate Education Minister Craig Foss to be sacked due to problems with Novopay.
The Education Ministry initiative was launched two months ago but there have been thousands of errors in teachers' pay and security leaks of personal information.
Education Minister Hekia Parata has passed on Novopay responsibilities to Mr Foss, who said every issue with the system was taken seriously.
Talent2 gave the education ministry an assurance it would fix the problems by Wednesday last week but didn't meet the deadline.
NZN