TNT and Dutch trade unions have reached an in-principle agreement on a new collective labouragreement (CLA) and social plan after staff rejected the company’s proposals to cut pay by 2%-3.5%
in return for job security in December last year.The trade unions will present the CLA and the social plan to their members, advising them toaccept the agreement. The result of the member consultation will be known in mid-March.
If approved, the TNT CLA will run from 1 April 2009 to 31 December 2011 with all TNTemployees in the Netherlands receiving a 0.7% pay rise as of 1 January 2010. A differentiation willbe made from 1 April 2010 in the form of separate CLAs to be agreed for the divisions TNT Post, TNTExpress and TNT Post Parcel Service.
A 1% rise has been agreed as of 1 January 2011 and 0.2% as of 1 October 2011 for the TNT Postentities (excluding TNT Post Parcel Service). For TNT Express and TNT Post Parcel Service, newnegotiations will begin on 1 April 2010. TNT Post and the trade unions will also set up a jointworking group to explore a future-proof pension scheme for TNT Post.
At the beginning of November 2009, TNT said it would put priority on retaining jobs and seekpay reductions of between 2% and 3.5% after warnings that it may need to reduce the 23,000-strongpostal workforce by up to 11,000 to cut costs in response to falling mail volumes and increasedcompetition. The company’s original aim of reducing salaries by up to 15% along with a three-yearjob guarantee was rejected in the spring last year.
TNT Post is experiencing an annual volume decrease of around 6% making far-reachingrestructuring of the postal operations in the Netherlands a necessity. The starting point for thenegotiations was the outcome of the referendum held by the trade unions whereby the union membersfavoured income above job retention. TNT claimed that a good balance between these two factors hasbeen achieved with this in-principle agreement.
The social plan focuses on stimulating voluntary redundancy, with an additional financialincentive for employees aged 50 years and older. Arrangements for compulsory redundancy focus onthe size of the severance payout on termination of employment. This is based on the old “subdistrict court formula” with an adjustment factor of 0.8 and a mediation period of up to 12months. Severance pay will be gradually reduced on the basis of a formula as the mediation periodprogresses. A special arrangement will apply to employees aged between 55 and 58 years. Those bornbefore 1 January 1952 may be declared supernumerary but will not be dismissed.
TNT said this social plan will enable it to mitigate the effects of the far-reachingreorganisations in a socially responsible way. The new CLA and the social plan form a key part ofthe previously announced Master Plans with the aim to achieve annual savings of €395 million from2015.
