Austrian Post has reached a positive agreement with the national postal union GPF postponing theexpansion of delivery districts planned for March this year by one month to prevent strike action
and calm down the union’s management.The GPF last month expressed its frustration about the intention of Austrian Post’s managementto enlarge delivery areas of postal workers in view of their heavy workload and overtime. Itthreatened strike action, which it submitted for final approval to the Austrian Trade UnionFederation ÖGB.
According to research by GPF staff representatives, an expansion of delivery districts is farfrom realistic due to ‘blatant violations of working times’, as working time recordings haveconfirmed. “As long as workers deliver up to 1,000 kg of mail daily and even have to justify itwhile delivery areas are being further extended, we will certainly not stop our measures,” GPFchairman Helmut Köstinger said.
Austrian Post CEO Georg Poelzl said after several hours of union negotiations: “Nobody wants tooverload employees, we all agree on that. But we must react to falling volumes and process changes,like we did in previous years. It is the responsibility of the management, in everybody’sinterest.”
As the result of the negotiations, the changes to the delivery areas will be postponed by onemonth to March so enough data from the status-quo recordings will be available in addition tovolume calculations and seasonal fluctuations to evaluate the size of the delivery areas. Bothparties have agreed that changes to delivery areas should ideally take place during quieter monthsin terms of work load and volumes, but exceptions should also be possible.
In addition, it was agreed that organisational changes in mail delivery and branches should leadto better coordination between the union’s representatives and Austrian Post. It will also beallowed for employees to start work earlier on individual days, weeks or at seasonal times for acertain period of time unless this impacts on the shipment flow and causes waiting times.
“We cannot afford a backlog in reforms! This would only be at the expenses of customers, thecompany and thus its employees. It is a fact that we are increasingly having fewer letters which wehave to respond to today and tomorrow,” Poelzl added. Austrian Post’s volumes have been decliningby around 40 million letters year by year.
