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clip 3Clip description
The clip explains the four types of mail to be sorted and the way in which the postal sorting officers and the customs officers, at the new Redfern Mail Exchange, work in conjunction with the mechanised sorting equipment.
Curator’s notes
This clip provides a picture of Redfern’s system of computer controlled conveyor belts for sorting postal items. For many of these predominantly male employees at the exchange, the new work was quite different in nature from the work they’d performed for many years as mail sorters.
While the workforce in the clip appears to be predominantly of European background, over the 20 years that followed the opening of Redfern, Australia Post’s mail sorting workplaces became some of the most culturally diverse in the country. By the late 1980s the organisation’s approach to human resources management included a well informed scheme of worker training and education, particularly in relation to employees from non-English speaking backgrounds.
