La Poste will hire 5,000 new employees by 2014 to ease social tensions in response to the KasparReport published earlier this week and after three workplace suicides late last year and early this
year.Conducted by former CFDT union leader Jean Kaspar, the report called for more attention to bepaid to employee welfare and human relations and to ease hiring restrictions while supporting thecompany’s efforts to make the workforce more flexible. Kaspar suggested that the company take on upto 5,000 additional staff to ease social tensions.
French media reported yesterday that the new employees will receive an unlimited workingcontract with 1,000 people to be hired in 2012 and 2,000 in 2013 and 2014 respectively. La Posteemploys around 240,000 staff in total.
The natural attrition at La Poste is estimated at 8,000-10,000 employees per year which are notcompensated by the new hires who will replace about every second person leaving the company.
But CGT and SUD-PTT, the two main French postal unions, said the announcement is far frommeeting the needs of postal workers, who have seen staff numbers decline sharply in recent years.In 2010, 11,700 workers were made redundant with around 10,000 following last year.
The unions are due to meet next Monday to decide how to respond to the announcement. “Strikeaction is necessary,” Régis Blanchot from SUD-PTT said.
Following the suicides in February and March this year, La Poste CEO Jean-Paul Bailly startedtalks with postal unions headed by Kaspar to make proposals. His report presented on Tuesdaysuggested to “loosen restrictions on staff” urging the postal operator to hire 4,500-5,000 people.In addition, Kaspar stressed the need “to rebalance the company’s management, to “change its socialmodel” and to “strongly rely on social dialogue to promote change”.
La Poste reportedly noted in a statement that Bailly shares these views and “decided to suggestto the postal unions rapid and global negotiations on all these issues”.
