Over 1,200 Swiss postmen demonstrated against the ‘Distrinova’ project of Swiss Post on Saturday(October 23) in Bern fearing that the implementation of new sorting machines would lead to massive
job cuts.During the demonstration, letter carriers from all over Switzerland signed a resolution by thepostal union Kommunikation asking Swiss Post for a contractual guarantee not to cut any jobs asresult of automated sorting technology. Related to this guarantee, additional negotiations aboutpalliative measures like shorter working times or partial retirement would be necessary, Swissmedia reported.
The union also called for the preservation of full-time delivery jobs. Swiss Post has about15,000 delivery staff out of a total of 60,000 employees.
The main message of the speakers at the demonstration was that Swiss Post has to provide publicservices instead of seeking the highest possible profit. Alain Carrupt, the president of theKommunikation union, claimed that thousands of jobs are threatened by the new sortingtechnology.
Since September, Swiss Post has been testing new automated mail sorting machines in Lausanne andthe region of St. Gallen, Central Switzerland, which are expected to result in later deliveries forsome customers saving time and costs. As part of the Distrinova project, the tests focus onautomated sorting of pieces to each individual address thus reducing the time-consuming manualsorting by postmen.
After the demonstration, Ulrich Hurni, Head of PostMail at Swiss Post, responded to the questionwhether Distrinova would lead to job cuts: “The tests need to be completed first. Only next yearwill Swiss Post decide on how many employees are affected.”
“The project will be implemented gradually over several years. Therefore, we can say today:unless there is a massive decline in volumes, there won’t be any layoffs,” he added.
